“I don’t mind at all!” Rum said, sitting on the edge of his gargantuan bed. His little brother standing in the tattoo shop’s bedroom, just over a meter away from the closet. “Go pick whatever you need. The closet is yours.”
“That’s not what you would’ve said 2 days ago” Amez raised a suspicious eyebrow.
“But it’s what I’m saying now” the big brother smiled, shrugging for good measure.
“O-kay” Amez relaxed his suspicious stare, and fixed eyes on the closet. He stepped forward, grabbed both of its handles, then slowly rotated them, before equally slowly opening up. Inside, Amez’ gaze calmly surveyed the interior. He scanned with his eyes, as if looking for something strange, out of place, or missing. “You’ve rearranged some of my things recently.”
“Yeah” Rum leaned backwards on the bed with his hands. “Just needed to store something.”
For a long while, Amez’ eyes did not stop trying to figure out his big brothers’ secret. He stared, bent over and squatted down, looking at the closet’s inside from multiple angles, until finally, he “hmm”-ed, and breathed out a slight sigh. He fetched a cleaning cloth from a stack on top of a shelf, then stood back, taking one final look at the interior. “Did you paint the back of the closet?” Amez turned and raised an eyebrow at Rum. “I could’ve sworn the back of the closet did not use to have this rough a texture.”
“Ah” Rum raised a finger. “It’s not the same texture, no. I had to replace it.”
“Really? Why?” The younger brother raised both eyebrows in surprise.
“Uhm...” What do I tell him? Rum tried to look as calm as he could on the outside, while his forehead began to grow the tiniest of sweats.
“Did you get the wall damaged in some way?” Amez pressed when Rum said nothing. “Why would you paint the back of the closet?”
“Ehm... I just had to replace it. There was a good reason, trust me.” The big brother nodded to himself. “It’s better that way. And the new wall is probably going to be pretty resilient.”
Amez opened his mouth, but did not exactly find the words to comment.
“I’d say it’s an upgrade, and a big one” Rum added, acting very normal, if I may so myself.
“O-kay.” The younger paused a second. “Whatever.” Amez looked confused and a little exasperated. “Just, for the future: ask me before you change out my furniture. The bed was one thing, the previous one was totally awful anyways. But this is a bit too much. Next time, ask.” The little brother wasn’t mad, he didn’t even look irritated, just could not understand Rum’s behavior. The tattoo artist walked out of the room with that confusion carried all over his handsome face.
With the door to the workshop closing behind Amez, Rum stood up from the bed. Calmly, he stepped over to the closet, opened it, then bent forward and reached in to touch the back wall – The Vum Door, as he’d come to name it in his head. “Mesh’thoo” he spoke quietly to the wood, and the wall pulled back and to the side like the doors at Great Spruce. That word, Mesh’thoo, it meant something like “passage” or “make way” in woodspeak. It was the magic codeword which Sovadova Bikbik had taught him, before she’d taught the wood to respond to it.
Inside, Rum was met by the sight of Veish sitting on Eleganto, her legs resting on Axel. I thought I heard your voice inside, he mentally commented, as he noticed she was also holding one of her conjured books, open and in her hands.
“Reading?” Rum small-talked.
To his mild surprise, Eleganto was the one to answer. “She’s been reading for us!” The witch suddenly opened her mouth as Eleganto spoke. As if surprised by something Rum couldn’t see. Then came a blush, and she produced a weird little smile.
Rum raised his eyebrows, looking at the witch. “Really?”
Veish looked away, as if shy or embarrassed about something. She smacked the book closed, and managed to suppress most of her smiling. With faint irony, she then drew The Joy Stick from her belt, before speaking to the air. “Magic Library”. As the 2 rows of blue-and-white magic books appeared, she inserted the book she’d been reading into the lower row, before the magic dissipated. She met Rum’s eyes. “They were curious, and I was bored.”
“Mmm” Rum responded. “Still, what a nice thing to do.” He looked at Axel The Chest, who’d stayed silent, listening. “You must be more bored than Veish in this big empty room.” The wooden chest lid eyes of Axel noticed Rum staring at him, and the 2 of them made simple eye-contact. The wizard continued. “We’d better start thinking of something meaningful and nice for you people to do.”
“We people?” Axel responded.
“Yeah” Rum said. “You the furniture, I mean. You don’t like being called people?”
“No, it’s not that” Axel replied, “just... nobody have ever qualified us as people before.”
“Well” Rum took a few steps closer, “somebody gotta be the first I suppose. You seem like thinking, feeling, intelligent creatures to me. And that’s pretty much how I’d imagine a person to be.”
For a moment Axel stared at Rum, a little stunned, and Rum stared at Axel, awaiting his words. Finally, Axel spoke. “Thank you.”
“If only it was such an obvious and common thing to say, that there was nothing for you to feel thankful about.” Rum turned his gaze to Veish. “Ready for today’s lesson?”
Veish took made a small in and out breath, like she was just about to do something really hard. “Yeah. But breakfast first, right?”
“Breakfast first!” Rum affirmed.
As Veish got up, and the 2 mages stepped over to The Vum Door, which had closed by itself, Rum touched the wood and repeated the codeword “Mesh’thoo”. The door pulled back, and the 2 stepped out and into the bedroom. There, they both started walking around the bed. However, as they circled, Rum saw White Rose look at him intently from zes spot near the backdoor. And just as they came upon zes corner, the skeleton stepped in front of them both. “Hmm?” Rum voiced, “What’s the matter?” The skeleton held up the blackboard in front of him, and Wizard-daddy read: “White Rose, Rum, Veish”. He looked up at where zes eye-sockets hid behind the veil. “You want to come with?” The skeleton nodded fiercely. “You wanna watch?” Rum assumed. White Rose put zes head to the side, then shook just a slight bit. Ze pointed at Veish, then ze pointed at Rum. Then, ze pointed at zeself, and then at Rum. “Euhmmm...” Rum tried but failed to find an interpretation. White Rose repeated the pointing, the wizard following zes pointing hand. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.” White Rose bent down and grabbed the cloth ze’d been using to wipe the board. After wiping hastily, ze wrote anew, and Rum from his standing position leaned over a little to see. “Teach”, he read. White Rose came back up. Ze tapped the blackboard hard a couple of times. Then ze pointed at zeself, before pointing at Rum. Ze repeated the process. “You want to learn magic?” Rum raised an eyebrow. White Rose nodded frantically. Rum reached up to stroke his beard. “That... I mean I would love to teach you magic, White Rose. But you... well.” He gave the barest of shakes of his head. “You don’t have any of your own mana. And...” the wizard looked into White Rose’s bony face with a long concerned stare, “... I’m not going to be shy here: your mana, that’s a major problem. I’m afraid of what could happen if you use too much of it trying to cast magic.” White Rose stared at him for a long time in turn. Then put zes head down in defeat, before stepping to the side. Rum sighed, and looked at his skeleton baby with some more concern. Eventually, he took a step towards ze. He grabbed zes bony chin, and pulled it up so ze could meet his eyes. “It doesn’t mean you can’t come to watch and learn. But–“ he paused to bite his lip, “–I’ll have to think about your mana problem.” White Rose just looked at Rum. Ze could not express much emotion, yet somehow, through the intensity of zes stare, Rum knew that White Rose probably felt happy, relieved, excited, or all 3 at once.
The trio stepped out of the bedroom, and into the street, starting their walk to The Belly Filler. They arrived some minutes later. Rum and Veish ordered and received their breakfast, while White Rose sat next to them and watched the humans eat. Rum tasted his Belly Filler porridge: not that tasty, kinda bland, but the dash of strawberry jam makes the experience okay. The trio sat at the middle of a long table, and were surrounded on all sides by workers of the 4 most visible kins in the city: dwarves, mecha-gnomes, urban elves and humans. On their left was a group of humans and urban elves, mostly women and gender indistincts, chatting about work at a bakery. At the front, on the long table next to theirs, was another group of just humans, one of them telling a story he’d gotten from his mother. She’d been doing carpet cleaning at an urban elf in Cow Town, a city quarter beyond the city wall but north of The Iron City, and the man was delivering some gossip about the elf. Behind the trio sat another group of humans and a single urban elf, discussing the arrival of a large group of dwarves some days ago, and how it affected the prices of the cheese trade. Lastly, on their right was a group of mecha-gnomes and dwarves, roughly evenly split in kinship. They were all quiet, with mildly serious looks on their faces. Rum took notice one of the dwarves who looked extra somber. Missing right hand, the wizard observed, as the dwarf ate sad porridge with his left. I wonder if that would qualify you for disability pay at The Little Mountain? Rum tried not to stare at the lump, but he did ponder over it for a while. Must be tough for non-magical poor workers with such a disability, to find a livable wage. Rum gave the gnomes in their group a brief glance as well, then something clicked in his head. He turned quickly to Veish and White Rose, excitement on his face. “I just found the answer!”
Veish leaned up from her porridge. “An answer? To what?” Beside the witch, White Rose just stared at Rum, though he was sure ze had as much excitement on the inside as he had on the outside.
“To White Rose!” Rum leaned in, whispering almost conspiratorily. “I know how to fix zes mana problem. And I’ll do it – right after breakfast!”
True to his words, half an hour later, and Veish and White Rose had gone to the university park to read books and visit the open access libraries. Rum, meanwhile, was travelling alone down the southern highway, on towards a place not that far from The City Forest. Straight east from it, in fact, sandwiched between The City Forest and the southern highway. It was near that street where he’d totally collapsed a few weeks ago, running to The City Forest for the very first time in his life (despite how the place had existed since before he was born). The general area and city quarter was simply called The Green Streets. To its north was Rabbit’s Home, which was the quarter west of the southern highway, north of The City Forest, and just beyond the city wall. Towards the south, The Green Streets stretched for a while until the end of the city proper, with the relatively recent Wolf’s Slum bordering it to west and south.
Rum’s entrance into The Green Streets was not timed with a full bodily collapse this time. Perhaps out of a recent uptick in wisdom, he’d decided that maybe I shouldn’t use Self-Running Legs for all of my solo errands? Rum’s destination though wasn’t just any place in the unpaved Green Streets. It was, rather, one particular building complex which lay deep inside The Green Streets, to its north and west, nearly bordering The City Forest. Last time Rum had heard of such a place, it had been called S.H.A.M., the city’s volunteer-driven public health service, and it was Ovadova Zizik who had mentioned this particular place in passing dialogue. So Rum was mildly surprised when he came walking into the building complex area from the end of a street, only to see a group of mecha-gnomes carrying away a large S.H.A.M. wooden sign, while another group of mecha-gnomes stood with a tall ladder against a great wooden building, hammering in the nails of a large new metal sign reading “S.H.A.M.E.”, and below it “The Substitute Healthcare Alternative for The Masses, Enterprise”.
“Huh” Rum let out, strolling past the hammering gnomes, and on towards the large building’s double doors. The human supposed this large building to be the complex’s main healthcare facility. As his glanced fell from the sign, and over at the double doors, he saw a dwarf walk into the building pressing a rag to his bald bleeding head. Meanwhile, out stumbled a hunched human woman, carrying a screaming baby in a wrapped old blanket, another woman trying to support the first and avoid her from falling. The presumably newly birthed woman looked sickly, weak, with sweat and blood covering parts of her cheap brown and white linen dress. Rum stopped his walk in front of the 2 women, with them heading to the street behind him, and which he’d come from. He looked at the 2 people. “Want some help?”
The female duo halted. The supporting woman stared at him, mildly dumbfounded. The hunched new mom, giving him only a second of staring, mouthed a “yes”, before forcing a dry gulp, and then adding “thank you.” Rum stepped up to the sickly mom, a ginger long-haired woman in her late thirties maybe? Though the bodies of poor people age considerably quicker than the rich, so I could be wrong. He raised a hand and placed it lightly on the woman’s forehead, to the curiosity of both the sickly woman and her supporting friend. “Trinity of Healing”. The green magic poured over the woman in a bodily lightshow. The woman breathed in, as if having some ongoing and overwhelming internal experience. As the magic worked itself on the woman, gradually, the telling signs of her bettering became apparent. Slowly, her hunch was undone of her hunch, causing her to eventually stand straight and looking moderately strong. At last, her eyes stared into Rum’s and widened, her mouth open but no words. No longer did she behave like a sickly person, though her appearance was still covered in sweat and blood. Let me fix that. Rum slid his hand down to the woman’s cheek next. “Clean Body”. The whirlwind of magic was like a blur upon the woman, and slowly transformed her looks into something fresh: her skin lost its sweat and every little trace of dirt and grease, and her hair tidied up. Lastly, Rum moved his hand onto her shoulder, and to the woman’s continuously astonished face, the wizard spoke one last spell. “Renew Clothes”. Another whirl of magic burst forth and around the woman, and her poor worker’s dress slowly shifted into a deep blue wonderous color on the outside, while beneath her outer dress there were signs of a set of white full-body undergarments. The outer layer of clothing being a quality linen, while her inner undergarments were some soft-looking cotton. Rum took a couple of steps away from her. “Is that better?” He looked at the new mom with the simple caring eyes of what could’ve reminded someone of a good nurse or doctor, or at least the eyes of a professional carer.
“Y-yes!” She just stood there, stunned, staring at him. The former supporting woman now just looked at her friend, equally stunned at the transformation.
“Good” Rum smiled, then he walked passed them and into the double doors of the great wooden building.
What met the mage inside was a sore sight. Possibly as much as 100 people sat on benches, on the floor, or leaning against walls. A few people even lay on the floor too, apparently incapable of much movement or even sitting. It was a large room, though it should’ve been made larger still, for really it was cramped. Among these 100 people Rum saw a single green-elven man, walking around from person to person, looking them over and inspecting their condition. The elf had what Rum discerned to be serious eyes, while his face from the nose and down to his chin, all his features there were covered by a fully white bandana, fastened to the back of his head. For clothing, the green-elf wore a darker multishaded green robe, with strips of blue. As Rum stood in the entrance staring at the elf, he had a thought. Is this an elf from a different Great Tree?
He watched as the blonde androgenous elf made one dwarf open his mouth wide. The elven medicine man, or as much Rum guessed him to be, shook his eyes at what he saw inside. “Your gums are bleeding. You’ll lose most of the rest of your teeth in the next month, if I were to guess. You’ll need a strong and specialized healing potion. If you have the money–” the elf waved towards the left side at the opposite end of the large room, where was a rusty iron grate door guarded by a scarred mean-looking muscled human woman, “–go tell the pharmacist you’ll need a Godan Cure, and come back.” And then, as if the horror-stricken dwarf was suddenly completely uninteresting, the elf moved onto the next sick person.
To the other side of the iron grate door, into which Rum could see the outlines of a mecha-gnome handing money to a counter and receiving a flask of something in return, there was another door to the right side of the large room’s opposite end. It was just a simple wooden door, but as Rum returned to look at the bandana-faced elf, he saw him point at the wooden door, while giving directions to a mecha-gnome woman with a swollen head. “Straight forward, at the end of the corridor is the stairs. Walk up there, then sit in the waiting room until someone comes to see you. If nobody comes for you, then come back tomorrow.”
Rum took his eyes off the elf, and began a stroll into the mass of people spread everywhere. There was barely a path left for walking between the crowding of ill people, sitting on opposite benches or sitting or leaning against the walls. More than a few times, Rum had to step over someone’s long legs or walk around some dwarf or human resting on the floor. He looked into the faces of the people around him: humans, urban elves, dwarves, mecha-gnomes. Plenty of people from each kin. Some sat in fatigued positions: exhausted, drowsy, or both. As Rum strolled past, one elderly human man was drooling over and onto the head of mecha-gnome teenage girl sleeping next to him. Some were much more awake. A few faces looked pained. Toothaches, physical trauma to feet, kneecaps, hips, hands, elbows, shoulders, chests, and of course heads. At least one human teenage boy had a combination of cuts to both knees and his hands, as if having fallen from a height. Perhaps a rooftop? Others had some ailment that was more likely of a mental sort. One urban elven man just stared into nothingness as if catatonic, a very simple grey robe on his person, and an urban elven woman sitting next to him, holding his right hand. Another urban elven woman some seats away was visibly stressed to the extreme, and continued to fervently run her hands up and down her upper legs, grinding her teeth, and casting intermittent glances at her surrounding fellow patients. “So much suffering...” the words slipped out of Rum as he observed, taking it all in slowly.
Then the mage heard the loud voice of a human man 2 rows of benches ahead. “Shithead! My nephew’s a total shithead! I know it was him – he told ‘em! Little bastards can’t keep out of other people’s business.” Rum looked up to see an angry red-faced, clean-shaven individual, with a torn pair of blue linen pants, and trails of blood running from a piece of cloth the man was holding against his left kneecap. “Next time I see my nephew, I’ll make him regret teaming up with those animals.”
“You mean your actual dogs or the wild gnomes?” Another human male next to the former asked. This one was covering his left hand with a smaller cloth, after what looked to be a deep cut to his finger.
“BOTH!” Dog-man barked.
Rum continued strolling in their general direction, causually listening.
There was a bit of silence as the first man sat steaming red with anger. Then the second asked a follow-up question. “How old is your newphew?”
“7” came a growl.
“But that’s just a little boy!” Exclaimed finger-cut man. “He can’t know any better. And you should know how those gnomes work. They’re experts at appealing to kids’ hearts and minds. Your newphew could hardly be much blamed for being recruited by them. If that is the case.”
“I know it’s the case!” Dog-owner snarled. “And he should know who’s his family and who’s the strangers! And you stick to family. I’m his uncle!” The man cast an intense look of general anger into the other man’s face.
“I agree!” It was sudden shout from a third human. This was a woman from closer to the other end of their row of benches. Rum had to search the crowd of patients a second to spot her. She stood up from her seat to shout more. “They got me too! And they got my daughter! I’m sure of it. She’s been telling those troublemakers lies about me and our horse. Allying with wild gnomes!?” The woman leaned forward and spat into the ground between the feet of the dwarven woman sitting to her left. The dwarf was holding her dwarven belly and looking nauseous, though for unrelated medical reasons. The human woman herself had clearly undergone some physical trauma to her shoulder, as around her shoulder the dress she was wearing had been torn, and she had a visible, large, and lightly bleeding set of bruises.
“Me too” voiced a third human accuser. And at this point Rum was starting to see a pattern and decided to ignore the complaints about wild gnomes acting out animal justice with the help of preteen agents.
Instead, he looked about at the other patients. The hopeful, the despairing, the few freaking out, and the variably unconscious or sleeping. He felt something inside grasp at his heart. I kinda can’t take this all. What should I do? How should I do it? He looked about, and found a young human male holding onto his belly, which was bleeding heavily. The teenager looked genuinely scared. Rum strode up to him, stopping right next to the young man’s seat. He gave the teenager a little look. “Want help?” It was a simple question, and the healing mage delivered it with a kind of expression that might’ve signaled mild sadness, a distant concern, and intentional respect. If any of that was received by the teenager Rum did not know it, but he tried to form that expression nevertheless.
The young man, or boy, just looked back at the wizard for a few seconds, with a sort-of confused, fatigued, and still scared expression. “What help – euh – could you – euh – give me?” The sentence was breathed out with the difficulty of severe trauma. Rum noticed the boy’s body give out light bursts of shivers.
“The one you need.” Rum pointed down at his belly. “That problem solved.”
The boy snorted air from his nose, as if finding Rum’s statement incredulous. Fear was still in the young one’s expression as he looked up at the wizard standing there next to him, but there was also something else which somebody discerning might’ve spotted: a brewing, curious hope, hidden deep in the young man’s eyes. “If you can do that. Do it.”
The mage leaned forward and lightly touched the young one’s belly, just above his serious wound where he was trying to keep himself together. “Trinity of Healing.” A deeply surprised and awed expression overtook the boy teenager as he stared into the green light, captivated. Then the magic started doing its healing at incredible speed, and the eyes of the young male grew dazed with sudden internal relief, and what might’ve been any number of strange sensations as the belly came back together. Finally, the young man leaned back and relaxed into his seat, smiling, awe-struck, eyes full of relief. He laughed. “Ha-ha-ha. Did you just do that?”
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“I did.” Rum nodded.
Suddenly the boy’s face fell, and a worried expression returned over him. “But Mage: I can’t afford this! I’ve no money to give!”
“And fine is that, I think.” Rum raised an eyebrow at the boy teenager and looked very briefly to be thinking. “Because I certainly did not ask for any money.” Rum looked around the young man. “Somebody else here demanding money off you?”
What the mage saw was not a single face teeming with greed, but nearly a dozen set of nearby eyes watching him with varying combinations of awe, surprise, and hope. And then 1 or 2 dozen more people looking at him from further away, their eyes attracted to the green lights like moths. A magic show did indeed stand out in a room perpetually filled with hurt and sickness.
Rum turned his body around and fixed his eyes on a mature-looking human woman at the opposite bench. This woman did not look very sick, but there was some traces of sweat on her, as if she’d endured pain. He stepped over to her. “What ails you?” Again, Rum’s question was simple.
The woman had been staring at the boy’s healed belly, and when the wizard stared at her, she looked up, surprised at his eyes on her. For a second, she came to terms with the situation, then another second passed by as she appeared unsure how to respond. “It’s... personal.”
“Nothing I can help with?” Rum brought up an eyebrow.
“I don’t... know.” She grimaced with uncertainty. Waving Rum over to get close, he stepped close and leaned in to hear her whisper. “I’ve been having pains, in my left breast.” She quickly glanced down at it, and Rum looked too. On the outside of her grey, brown and white dress, nothing looked unusual. Although he couldn’t really see much at all, because of the clothing. “I’ve got a child, and when I tried to breastfeed her, there was blood.” The woman paused for a second to look deeper into his eyes, then added: “But no bitemarks.”
Rum produced a nod of understanding and a faint smile for comfort. “That should be no problem I think. Should work like every other time I cast the spell.” He put forward his hand and placed it on the woman’s chest, right above her breast. “Trinity of Healing” he announced, and the woman’s upper body bathed in green lights. A few seconds passed with her face just captived by the magic spectacle, then she begun taking several rapid breaths, and started smiling. “You feel better?” the healer asked.
“Y-yes. It’s almost unbelievable. Heh.” She looked genuinely happy. “It’s like something there just disappeared.” She looked down at her breast.
“You want me to remove your sweat as well?” He pointed at her forehead. She reached up to touch, and felt her own sweat. Not that her arms and the other parts of her body didn’t also have traces of sweat. The woman looked up into his eyes. She produced a quick nod.
Rum put 4 fingers lightly on her forehead. “Clean Body”. Then, as the whirling magic did its job, he straightened his back up, and looked about. He put up his right hand on display for the audience, the one he’d used for magic. “Who wants a quick heal next?” Around 4 dozen eyes looked his way. Quite a few of them quite wide, expectant, and eager.
Only 2 minutes later and a queue had formed in front of Rum. He’d already managed to heal 2 additional patients, before the elven medicine man roaming about the room came up to him, and tapped on his shoulder. “Excuse me, mage?” Rum turned over to his side to face the elf next to him. What Rum saw there was little more than a pair of green eyes, surrounded by the elf’s long blonde hair, and the white face-covering bandana concealing mouth and nose. “What are you doing to the patients?”
“Healing” Rum The Mage answered matter-of-factly, before looking back towards the next patient, a dwarf man, and waving him foward.
“But what manner of healing?” The elf inquired, his voice sounding distorted by the fabric of the bandana.
Rum cast a glance at the elf. “The complete kind.” He looked back at the dwarf patient. “Where’s the problem?” He leaned forward to form closer direct eye-contact with the dwarf.
“My hip” answered the dwarf. He had a mature look. Not old, but not young either. His beard was reddish-brown, only neck-long, and consisted of 2 thick lightly braided strands. His hair was of the same neck-long length and the same reddish-brown color. The dwarf looked generally healthy, but Rum had noticed a strange gait to the man. “I fell off my ram a few weeks ago, and I thought I would get better” the dwarf looked down and sighed, “but I’ve only gotten worse. I’m afraid I’ll not be able to walk soon, unless someone can fix me.”
“Hmm” Rum said. The elf next to him just observed. The mage leaned forward put his hands to the right hip, whose leg shown signs of difficulty in walking. “Trinity of Healing.” A few seconds of green lights followed, and then Rum leaned up to find the dwarf smiling and looking ecstatic.
The dwarf leaned into his right leg. “By the gods, you’ve healed me!” Then he started pacing back and forth in front of mage and elf, happy like a toddler to walk. “It’s gone! The pain and discomfort is all gone!” Finally the dwarf stopped right in front of Rum and bowed. “Thank you, Great Mage.”
Rum nodded. “No problem.” He pointed a hand to the left. “Now enjoy your leg.” The dwarf took the hint, nodded with a big smile and walked out of view. “Next person” Rum waved in the patient.
“I’ve never heard of a spell that heals everything” the elf commented. “Let alone one that works so quickly and thoroughly.” The elven man eyed Rum as the wizard completed the healing process for the 4th patient in a row, and the 6th patient overall since he’d arrived at the room (or 7th, counting the new mom he’d met outside).
“Please step up” Rum waved in the 5th patient from the queue.
“Why are you doing this, mage?” The elf stared seriously and inquisitively at Rum. “You must clearly be a powerful mage. We’ve only had volunteer mages here who are students before, or post-graduates with modest powers of magic at best. What brings someone like you here today to heal all our patients?”
Rum completed his 5th patient, and then stopped, turning to the elf with a full smile. “I’m glad you asked. I’m looking for a particular kind of person. The healing” he gestured at the queue, “was just an on-the-spot act of spontaneity.”
“You just decided to provide powerful heals to a room filled with over 100 people, just like that?” The elf’s eyes were wide.
“Yes” Rum remarked without looking, instead looking at his 6th patient and waving the individual forward.
“Do you have any desires for volunteer-work, perhaps? Could you be persuaded to join our volunteer corpse of healing mages?”
“Sadly–” Rum glanced over at the elf, as the 6th patient experienced their moment of green magic lights, “–no.”
“That...” the elf looked over at the queue of people, only growing as more people decided to jump on the opportunity, “... is really regretful. The things you can do...” He shook his head, staring at the lined- and lining up sick people.
“I could be persuaded to drop in here again though” Rum let out, as he waved in the 7th individual. “But I’d like to ask a little favor.”
As Rum leaned in to ask a mecha-gnomish girl her problems, the elf perked up. “If you could come and do half the work you’re doing here and now today...” the elf paused for Rum to finish talking to the girl, which required some seconds of waiting. “Given I assume you’re going to heal all these people” the elf resumed as Rum stopped talking, “I see little reason not to. What was it that you had in mind?”
Another green lightshow. Rum straightened back up and leaned his head over to the elf. “First, a question. I’m curious: where are you from?”
“The City Forest of course.” The elf raised a small eyebrow and looked mildly surprised by the question. “All the elves volunteering here–” he gestured at the building they were in, “–are from there.”
Rum nodded. “That much I figured. But where in The City Forest? I’ve only known elves of The Committee of The Spruce. Your robe, it looks different.”
“Yes. I’m from The Committee of The Oak.”
“Hmm” Rum thought, then turned to let his current patient thank him, before waving in the next person. He asked about the next problem, cast his magic at the corresponding spot, and saw the person off. He once more straightened up, and turned to the elf. “I once had a conversation with some elves who thought The Committee of The Spruce was a little strange. But I’ve met the spurce-elves plenty now, and they seem like good folk. Do you know why other elves would find them strange?”
“Hmm” the elf turned his eyes away from Rum to think briefly. “I personally like them” he looked back Rum, “we have several of their volunteers here. But I know what my own people thinks. It’s not something you’d find issue with, it’s just that they are very open to the other peoples. They have lots of parties with dwarves and humans. That’s unusual for us green-elves.” He sighed. “We’re not anti-social, but we enjoy our time away from the rest of the city more. The Committee of The Spruce have even held massive orgies with over a hundred strangers from everywhere. And that’s where we tend to draw the line for our social outreach. We don’t invite many strangers to our orgies. Only occassionally do we invite those from other trees.”
“You don’t want orgies with dwarves and humans?” Rum raised an eyebrow.
“It’s not that!” He frowned under the bandana. “It’s orgies with people you totally don’t know and share so little in common with. We have a dwarf in The Great Oak even, he’s called Olav Elf-Dwarf.”
Rum raised his eyebrow higher.
“He’s adopted” the oak-elf nodded, as if that explained things. “But he’s all part of the orgies. So let it be said, the other Great Trees do not ban other kins from their orgies. Any kin are welcome to our communal love-making sessions. We just prefer orgies with those whom we know, personally. An oak elf never joins an orgy containing more people than the elf could easily count. Huge crowds tend to make green-elves uncomfortable, and that’s why we other elves find spruce elves so strange. They seem so comfortable with anyone – and at the same time.”
“Alright” Rum returned to his patient and did the thing of asking about the issue and casting healing magic. “So” he returned from the patient and turned all of his body to fully face the elf. “My other more important problem is this: I would like to try and hire someone who wants a job that is sometimes boring, sometimes exciting – mostly exciting I think – and where that person has a disability which would otherwise make it difficult for them to get a job.”
Now it was the elf man’s turn to raise his brow. “Why would you want such a person for hire?”
“Because this is a job most people could do, even when disabled. And I just figured that a disabled person would get more out of this job than most others. Although it would be big bonus if this person did not flinch at danger. There could be some dungeon diving involved.”
“Dungeons!?” The medicine man’s eyes widened in another surprise. “Are you actually an adventurer? A hero of the guilds?”
“I guess, something like that, yes, although nothing as grandiosa as hero. Anyways, that is part of why I can’t say yes to regular volunteer-work, at this time anyways.”
“A disabled person in a dungeon.” The elf looked over the queue, then at the small wooden door, and then into nowhere particular, appearing in thought. “That’s a tall order...” he looked unsure, but then his expression changed, “... or maybe not?” He turned back to face Rum. “Ex-adventurers are people who’ve retired from dungeons and guildwork. Some do it because they’ve found big treasure, but much more often, they are forced to retire because they have too little left to fight with. The lucky ones have acquired insurance just for such situations, others however were not so lucky, but ended their career on a lowpoint, and have existed in perpetual poverty ever since.” The elf looked down with his head and sighed, as if what he was saying saddened him. “We have a few of them come over here to seek help” the elf’s head came back up, “as they have old adventuring wounds, and have no money for paid healthcare.” Bandana-man snorted out air. “Though we’ve recently been ordered to soon charge people for the little care we can provide. Some of them might stop showing up when they hear of that.” He turned away from Rum again, looking out into nothing, presumably some memory or image playing in his mind.
“You know some ex-adventurers who could be interested?”
“Oh” the elf turned back, “if they’re interested I don’t know.” Bandana-man shrugged. “But 2 of them are here right now.” Bandana-elf turned to the queue and shouted through his face cloth. “ELECTROBLADE! BRONZEFIST!”
Rum saw a dwarf step out from the queue, but carrying a gnome? Indeed, between 2 huge thick arms of hard muscle, a dark-haired and bushy-bearded dwarf, with a distant sort-of tired expression, held an adult mecha-gnome in his arms, kinda like one would hold a log of wood or perhaps lazily hold a baby. On the left side of the top of his head, and surrounded on all sides by long and unkempt dark hair, a patch of skin revealed a set of deep and ugly scars, as if the dwarf had at some point in his dungeon career received a serious blow to the head, and this was all that could be done. As the dwarf and gnome came closer, Rum noticed several things about the latter. She was a woman, and her body was filled with scars from what looked like surgeries, past tears and cuts, and burns. She had a steel peg leg for her left leg, whose feet had the strange likings to a bird. And as Rum stared, he noticed her other leg also had steel implants at the ankles, reaching up and disappearing into her one linen legwear, the steel birdleg cut off from fabric near its stump. As the duo got close, he also noticed she was missing an arm. It was little more than another stump, this one cut off between where an elbow would’ve been and the shoulder. All in all, she had one intact limb out of her legs and arms, and it was holding a wooden crutch. Her face, as his eyes passed over the arms and on to it, had a deep scar on the mouth and chin, like she’d been slashed by blade in the past. It wasn’t as ugly as the other scars, apparently whatever doctors had worked her had managed to tie the lip back together rather well. At least she had 2 working eyes, and unlike the dwarf, had an undamaged set of bright turqois hair, though cut short, and shaped into a form the likes of a straight edged mountain-ridge running from the back to the front of her head. A warrior’s haircut.
When the dwarf and carried gnome stopped in front of Rum and the elf, the latter turned to Rum. “I didn’t get your name Great Mage. Mine is Zhozomi.” The oak elf named Zhozomi touched his own chest and gave a small brief bow.
“Rum” the wizard replied.
“Rum?” Zhozomi stood silent for a second, as if battling about whether to ask the reason for Rum’s strange name. Or at least that’s what they so often do, Rum assumed. However, the mage managed to ignore the awkward second until it passed. “Rum” Zhozomi repeated, and nodded. He gestured out a hand towards the opposite duo. “This” he formed a pointing finger at the gnome, “is Electroblade. And this” he raised his finger to the face of the dwarf, who didn’t seem to register it, “is Bronzefist. They used to be adventurers, but had to quit a few years ago. Electroblade, well, you can guess her reasons. Bronzefist though, his mind hasn’t been all there since his last dungeon dive.” The elf turned to form eye-contact with Electroblade next and glance at Bronzefist’s face, he gestured at the wizard. “This is Rum, a Great Mage, as you’ve been witnessing. He may want to hire one of you.”
“Really?” It was Electroblade who spoke. Bronzefist, fitting of his recent description, kinda just gazed blankly in Rum and Zhozomi’s general direction. “And what job could you have for one such as I?” She raised the crutch held in her right and only arm. “Even with this, I must disappoint the mage, I can barely walk a few steps. This is why I have my friend Bronzefist here carry me.” She tapped lightly on Bronzefist’s left shoulder with the crutch. “I’m afraid that if you want me for anything mage, you’ll only have one mouth and one arm for use, and it’d be quite necessary that Bronzefist came with, as I can hardly imagine you’d want to carry me around yourself.” She spoke in a matter-of-factly voice. Not disinterested, but trying to be realistic about her own prospects. Perhaps she’s done with disappointments in life, and wishes to avoid another, and that’s why she focuses on her negatives?
“Hmm” Rum produced, staring at the duo for a few seconds. Then he turned towards the waiting queue of people wanting of heals. He shouted towards the crowd. “I’ll be taking a break from healing! Gotta replenish my mana. I will resume again in roughly half an hour!” There were several sighs, a few worried faces, and murmurs of disappointment. Some refused to unqueue, while others went back to their seats, not wanting to stand or sit uncomfortably for half an hour. Rum returned to the duo, stepping over to the dwarf. “That patch of missing hair, that’s where he was struck hard enough that his mental capacities were damaged?” Rum looked back at Zhozomi for confirmation.
“Yes” the elf nodded.
Rum looked back at the patch of hair. “I’ll try” he said, and while gnome and elf tried to figure out what he was talking about, and the dwarf was not paying much attention anyways, the wizard reached out a hand and lay it on the dwarf man’s head, next to the ugly scars. “Trinity of Healing.” The familiar green lightshow flooded the dwarf man’s head, spreading everywhere and into every head-bound orifice, from ears, eyes, nose, and to mouth, creating a pattern of the light itself outright invading the man’s skull.
“aaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” the dwarf screamed, and suddenly dropped the gnome, causing Rum to reached out and catch the woman before she’d hit her head on the floor. The dwarf’s eyes were far wide, and he had an expression of utter shock on his face, though somehow his eyes were still as distant and far-away as before, as if his intense experience was happening in another world entirely. But then, as his scream became lower and lower: “AAAAAAAAaaaaaaah, haaa, haaa, huuuh”, the dwarf’s eyes appeared to have found Rum’s. With Rum pushing Electroblade up and into his arms, holding her like a baby, the dwarf and human established eye-contact. The green lights started dimming, and on the top of the dwarf’s head, a gradual clearing of light revealed that, in fact, parts of his scars had vanished, while others had drastically improved. No longer was the dwarf’s head such an ugly reminder of an ex-adventurer’s demise.
“Hi” Rum spoke into the dwarf’s eyes.
Bronzefist took several seconds to respond. Initially, he just stood there, eyes looking into Rum’s, staring, with his breathing going up and down at an above normal speed. “H-hi” the dwarf managed.
“Hmm” Rum inspected the state of the dwarf. Then looked down into the face of Electroblade. “Do you think you could just stand for a few minutes?”
Electroblade, who’d been looking over at her friend Bronzefist with awe, turned to look back up at Rum. “Uh? Sure.” Rum lowered her down next to him, and helped her to properly lean on the crutch. He returned back up to Bronzefist. “You’re still not quite there, are you?”
“Not quite... there” Bronzefist echoed. At least his facial expressions were working. He appeared significantly more functional, though somewhat confused.
Rum stretched out his hand and hovered it centimeters from the dwarf’s forehead. “This is going to be an intense experience, I’m sure.” Rum thought he witnessed Bronzefist’s eyes widen again ever so slightly at the remark, but before the dwarf could fully process what Rum could be referring to, the mage cast his second magic spell. “Restore Mind!” This was the wizard’s most intense and spectacular spell. It overshadowed everything else he had at his disposal in terms of its fantastical appearance, even Trinity of Healing fell behind the wonders of this spell. At once, dozens of sparkling electrical currents in light blue, pink and purple colors appeared around Rum’s fingers. ZIP-ZIP! ZAP! ZIP-ZAP-ZIP! The magic arced in near instantaneous flashes over and into the dwarf’s head. The ex-adventurer was literally shocked by the currents, as his body jolted and flinched with the sparkling magic. Then the magical currents starting growing in their intensity, and Rum and everyone around him, and practically anyone else in the room, what they saw was the steady formation of an intensifying torrent of magic as the rapidly increasing frequency of magical arcs crescendoed into a directed storm of magic, affecting everyone and everything around its caster. It seems, Rum observed through the whirling and arcing magic, that deeper mental problems require greater magic, for the spell wasn’t as spectacular as this back in Jorteg’s Dungeon. The wizard’s magic blew in gusts around his casting direction, blowing hats off the nearby people, and causing the lower hanging part of Zhozomi’s bandana and his robe to flapp violently with the displaced air of the surroundings. Electroblade seemed to have trouble standing, and she almost fell over when Zhozomi reached out to grab her and keep her standing. Then the magic went into its peak, and gradually, though faster than it had ascended into a magical torrent, the frequency of colorful arcing lights died down, and Rum felt a major internal mana fatigue seize him. As the last arc shot from his hand and into the dwarf’s head in one final ZIP!, the Great Mage had to do everything he could to keep hold of his own body, and reach forward to catch Bronzeblade, who was about to tip backwards onto his head – and get another injury just as Rum had tried to fix him. In the end, Rum didn’t have the muscle control to keep them both standing, so he resorted to grab Bronzeblade’s shirt and pull him forward, causing the dwarf to collapse into Rum as he collapsed into the dwarf, and they both kinda sank into each other in a step-by-step process, resulting at the end in a pile of 2 people on the ground. Fall damage averted. Rum breathed and felt the intensity of mental and general fatigue overtake him. Bronzeblade, meanwhile, was giving out generic moans of something, but Rum couldn’t see his face nor move much himself. Though he felt the dwarf’s upper body as it lay over his hips and legs.
“Bronzefist?” It was the voice of Electroblade. Rum could see the gnome woman stand and lean in on her crutch and steel bird leg, right next to the dwarf’s upper body form down at the wizard’s legs. She looked with some concern, though near-equal curiousity.
“Mage?” Rum heard the voice of Zhozomi over him, and was barely able to twist his own upper body over to look up, hazily, into the eyes of the elf. “I assume you’re alright and this is just mana-exhaustion?”
Rum, currently unable to speak much, simply closed his eyes and mouthed a slow “yes”.
For about 3 minutes Rum and the dwarf lay on the ground, almost equally incapable of moving. The elf and another dwarven bystander helped untangle the bodies, splaying Bronzefist on his back, while Rum was also splayed on his back, next to the dwarf but separated. In the end the mage started to feel like he could move, and he sat up. “Oufh” he uttered, sounding slightly cheerful, “that spell really drains me, you know?” It took a couple of dozen seconds more before he finally found himself ready to try standing up. He succeeded. “Okay” Rum looked over at Electroblade while he found his balance, “you can wake up your friend.”
The gnome, who’d been standing by for the whole time, took 3 slow and careful crutch-reliant steps forward to the bushy-bearded dwarf’s face, before she raised her crutch and began gently hitting Bronzefist’s cheek with it. “Hey, wake up snoozy!”
“Uuuh” the dwarf produced, and his nose barely twitched.
“WAKE UP BRONZEFIST! TIME FOR BATTLE!” The dwarf’s eyes shut open and he immediately sat up straight, his breath going into overdrive as his eyes looked around with wild panic, scanning for enemies. After the dwarf caught the sight of no enemies but lots of people around staring at him, his breath calmed slowly, his wide eyes normalized, and he discovered Electroblade standing next to him.
“What battle?”
The gnome smiled widely, and Rum thought he saw her face begin to cry a tear.
It then took a few more minutes for the dwarf to talk basic things out with the mecha-gnome, with Zhozomi, and with other participating individuals near him. He heard about his own transformation, and about what his life had been like these last few years. He seemed to have been only partially present for all that time.
When the dwarf was finished hearing most of the big news, the bushy-bearded man came over to thank Rum. The strong dwarf lifted the chubby human and Rum smiled as tears fell from the dwarf’s face and into the wizard’s robe. “Thank you” the dwarf at last said, before letting Rum go.
“My pleasure” Rum continued smiling. “But could I have a conversation with your friend over there now?” The dwarf wiped his eyes and turned to Electroblade, which looked back at Rum mildly surprised. The dwarf went over, picked the gnome up by the waist, and lifted the woman over to the sound of some half-hearted protests, planting her next to Rum. Then the strongman wandered away to a bench near Zhozomi, sitting down and striking up another dialogue. Rum looked down at Electroblade, who was silent but expectant. “I can’t heal missing limbs. Not as far as I know.” He gestured at the missing arm. “But I suppose you didn’t come here today only to guide Bronzefist?”
The gnome turned a smile. “No. He was the one taking care of me. I was the one with a problem.” She looked down at the leg, not the birdlike peg-leg, but the other where flesh mixed with pieces of steel metal. “My bones and muscle were mostly destroyed when this leg was crushed by a rock thrown by golem in The Ormar Dungeons.”
“Ormar?” Rum raised an eyebrow. “You’re above level 50?”
“47” she smiled, but behind her smile there appeared to be some lingering regret. “I was not strong enough for that place.
“Hmm” the mage sounded, stroking his beard.
“The problem is pain, and I think one of the metal pieces has come undone.” She drew up her pants leg, revealing a grotesque mix of steel and flesh. Right under her kneecap, there was something that looked to be a small open wound, where flesh didn’t seem to properly stay intact.
“Hmm” Rum leaned down, continuing to stroke his beard. “You know, I’ll just try and see what happens when the spell takes hold of you. Might be it fixes a few other problems you’re also having.” Kneeling down on one leg, Rum touched the exposed little gnome leg. “Trinity of Healing.” Green lights flooded the wound, the leg, and then crawled up and up, to find its way into all sorts of places across the gnome’s body. “Hoooo” she breathed, not a moan or a cry, but clearly she was feeling something intense or perhaps weird, working itself across her anatomy. As with the other times, it didn’t take awfully long, perhaps 15 seconds in total, before the green light subsided and dissipated. Rum stood up. “How are you feeling?” The gnome woman had dropped her pants leg, so Rum couldn’t see what had happened to the wound, but Electroblade’s face looked full of peace.
“I feel like a hundred sensations just went away. And...” she paused to find the words while wearing an expression of blank serenity, “... it’s calm. I feel very, very calm. A strange, but welcome calm. Heh” she smiled, and the smile broadened.
“That’s good” Rum nodded. “Now that you’re better. I’d like to offer you a job – for you only. Please say no if it sounds at all anything like something you’d not want to do. You don’t owe me anything for my magic. I just simply want to know if this opportunity is interesting to you, and if you can start immediately.”
Her smile shrank some, and she took on a more serious, business-like expression. “What do you need from me?”
“Well, you may be going back to the dungeons.”
She raised both eyebrows. “Okay.”
“Not a truly high level place like The Ormar Dungeons, at least not anytime soon, but like all dungeons it will be dangerous.”
She nodded, her smile shrinking some more and the seriousness in her face growing.
“In your reduced capacity, and given you probably have some traumas from prior dungeon experience, I would be understanding if this was troubling for you. So please tell me if this is not something you would like.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. Opening them again, she explained. “Don’t worry about me. I didn’t lose all these parts of myself at once. I lost them in stages. Which means I went back in, after they’d thoroughly beaten me before. I’m a fighter” she raised her chin high, proud, “I don’t flee from danger. If it wasn’t for my current uselessness, I would already be back in the dungeons myself.”
Rum nodded. “Well then. That was just a warning about what you might face. Most of the time you won’t be in dungeons and I can’t even promise much dungeon diving at all. It really remains to be seen.”
“Okay” Electroblade nodded, understanding.
“So, that warning over with, I’ll get to the actual job. Now, what thoughts come to your mind, when I say the words Mana Battery?”