It turns out, Mitchell could build a wall and help Miriam with her spell. Part of George’s ranger pack included a small hatchet, which would be enough to fell a tree, if slowly. The three made the decision to use the tree line for a wall, then have open areas for gates on the riverbanks, at the north and south of the clearing. Mitchell was cutting the nearby branches with the hatchet while George and John looked nearby for nice, straight trees to use for lumber. The branches would be used for firewood, but they still needed to be harvested and it was easier to strip them before the trees were felled. John had noted that the branches and trunks would impede sightlines, and that if it were up to him he would clear the trees two bow shots in every direction.
After George made a bow shot, they had scrapped that idea and resorted to making themselves a little fort, instead of a modern military base. It would be more bushcraft than construction. A bow shot was much further than they could clear in a week, let alone double.
Around midday, the two men returned from the nearby forest, and surprisingly George held a pair of jackrabbits in one hand while the other waved animatedly in conversation with John. The Ranger broke off to the fire, which Sarah had kept going while helping Miriam, to skin and cook the catch, while John came over to collect a bundle of branches.
“So I got some info on the Ranger class.”
Mitchell raised an eyebrow, carefully tucking a branch under his right arm with the others. Luckily, with healing magic, his arm hadn’t been out of use long enough to atrophy so he was able to hold a few branches with clamping strength, but he still had to put them all down to cut a new branch. “Elaborate.”
“Well, it turns out when you get your class, you get two levels worth of stat boosts. Oh, you get stats at every level based on class and second class. Like, example, each Ranger level gives him 5 Agility and a couple other smaller boosts to stats, then his Cook class will give him 3 Reflex and some secondary stats. He leveled Ranger once out there, that’s why he’s off to cook. Bringing Cook to 6 should bring his racial level to 6, which means he gets our human bonus to all stats from that.”
“Is there no other way to raise your stats?” Mitchell asked, worried. “Just doing some math, 5 agility a level means he’ll be ten times faster than me in ten levels, if I don’t get agility too.”
“From what I’ve seen you’ll get some kind of defender class.”
Mitchell scoffed. “Sure, I like shields, but not that much. Besides, that means you should get Canid Wrestler or some crap like that.”
John raised his arms and flexed. “Probably comes with Strength, so I’d be down.”
Mitchell couldn’t help but laugh, though it quickly died when the movement caused him to drop the small bundle of branches he was carrying. John looked at him with pity, which didn’t settle well in Mitchell’s mind, and grabbed the branches off the forest floor. “Just do the hatcheting, I’ll clean up. At least until lunch.”
Mitchell nodded, his throat tight as he got back to work, swinging the hatchet awkwardly and taking multiple blows to take off branches he now suspected John could just snap off with his bare hands.
Lunch was not more than an hour later, and the group reconvened around juicy rabbit meat. Mitchell, desperate for distraction, asked Miriam how her spellcraft was coming.
She laughed, a bright smile on her face. “I haven’t started! That book in my kit has the rules of magic. I haven’t made any spells yet, but we did develop a new one for Sarah. Who wants to be a guinea pig?”
Mitchell raised his stumpy hand with a shadow of hope. “Always ready to be healed.”
His fiance shivered. “Not me. Feels like mini slinkies moving through my muscles. Besides, this isn’t a heal. Sarah, hit ‘im.”
“Aye, teach!” Sarah stood from her stump and twirled her staff, whacking it against Mitchell’s shoulder lightly.
“Ouch.” Mitchell said absently, even as what felt like a cottonwood fire burnt outwards from the point of impact. Not burning, but a quick flash of heat spreading in a wave over his skin until it reached the opposite fingertips and faded. “So, uh… what was that supposed to do..?”
Miriam glared at him. “It’s a cleaning spell. Both visible and disinfecting, while not sterilising beneficial bacteria. The cleaning part was easy, but to have it spread and not kill a layer of skin required much more work than I thought it would.”
True to her description, Mitchell felt the dank moisture of his sweat wick away into nothing. He gave himself a sniff as Miriam kept talking. “We’re still working on it, I want to add scents but I can’t seem to figure out a way to make the scent without using a material component. It should be possible, but it’s like I’m missing some law or rule that would let me bridge the gap.”
“What about your own spells?” John asked, concerned.
Miriam waved it off. “I can make a spell later. This is good for me to learn foundations, and we were both curious if Sarah could make her own spells anyways. She can, she just doesn’t get the help that I do.”
Sarah scoffed. “Yea, I just got an automatic medical doctorate downloaded into my head. So unhelpful.”
“Compared to the actual laws of Arcanum? Nah, I win. How’s the wall going?”
Mitchell grumbled guiltily. “Slow.”
“Quick.” George said at the same time, the two looking at each other confused. “Well, let’s just say I’ve already marked the perfect trees for the wall, measured and scored them, and cleared out a path to drag them back.”
John nodded. “Shouldn’t be more than a few days. It’d be quicker-” he coughed with a glance in a certain person’s direction, “but we don’t have a proper axe.”
Mitchell kept quiet, knowing his contribution was small and almost irrelevant, and simply listened to the group as he nibbled on the rabbit leg George had cut for him. It turned out well, and he even gave a half-hearted cheer with the rest of the group when George announced that he had hit level six in his Cook class and the Human class had gone up too. If his maths were correct, George had over 25 agility, giving him the highest stat so far.
He’d thought himself prepared. He’d trained for a week, bringing all of his stats up above 7, with most of them being at 10. He’d thought long and hard on which items to bring, and the guy who brought a bow but no arrows was currently in the lead. He only hoped Nimbus didn’t share the stat bonuses.
Mitchell didn’t think he could stand being overpowered by a cat.
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John didn’t know what to do about Mitchell. He was acting down, and self-pitying. It made sense in the context of it all but they needed him to stop bringing down the general mood. It was almost miraculous that morale had kept up, though it was only the second day.
He knew why. There wasn’t time to think. It worked for him, and the girls had their hands full studying magic- actual, true to life magic. George had Nimbus, and the pleasure of being the most capable and useful of the group. John himself had work to do, and so he wouldn’t be thinking about classes and such until it was done.
Mitchell was stuck in his head. He’d thought that giving him the branch work would help, but by the time he got back he could tell that was far from the truth - the time alone had only eaten away at his confidence. After he’d eaten and spent some time with Sarah, he would see what he couldn’t do to help him out.
Sarah didn’t know what to do either, though she had more ideas, having gone through a crisis counselling program. Or rather, her medical knowledge also contained information on psychology, including crisis counselling. “It’s a classic example of reduced capabilities in a situation that calls for capability. He’s a soldier who runs out of ammo before the enemy makes a big charge. I’d be listless too.”
That helped John understand. “Then… can’t we just give him some ammo?”
Sarah glared at him. “What do you think we’ve been trying to do? Leave the boys to build the wall while us women sit around with our books? No, Miriam thinks that if I can teach her more about my spells, she can help me develop some way to regrow the hand.”
John almost dismissed that as impossible, but Sarah had said it with complete confidence. “You think that’s actually feasible?”
“Check Mitchell’s fingernails next time you see him. They should have grown about an inch by tonight.”
John’s eyes opened wide. “Sarah!”
She smirked at him. “John.”
“I.. You just..” John floundered for a moment, unsure why it upset him so much. “You can’t just do that to someone without telling them.”
“He literally said ‘I’m always down for some healing’! What, so if you’re bleeding out and unconscious you don’t want me to cast Hemoregeneration? I’m adding blood to your body after all, it could violate your autonomy.”
John didn’t like the prickly attitude. “It’s not about autonomy! It’s about saying you were going to do one thing and doing another.”
Sarah raised her hand, listing off points as she raised each finger. “First, it was Miriam that got permission and told me to, but I’m not saying I was following orders, just that you’re misplaced in placing blame - assuming we agree something wrong was done. Secondly, we never told him what we were going to do, he just agreed to it and we told him that it was a cleaning spell after. Which it is, by the way, it’s just that the cleaning was a byproduct of what we were trying rather than the point. I could explain the theory behind addition of matter and how my Disinfect spell was the only one that interacted with that aspect of Arcana, but I won’t bore you. Finally, I’d lie straight to his face, because he’d still thank me once he woke up and was whole again.”
John listened, his face growing more stern until she finished. “I understand your reasoning, and I don’t want you to pass me over for healing. I still feel like it was wrong, though.”
Sarah threw her hands into the air in exasperation. “Fine. I’ll go tell him what’s up, and you can go lug entire trees around in front of the man who’s currently struggling to collect branches.”
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John didn’t have time to respond before she left the cool shade of the ruins and headed for the treeline. After a brief moment of guilt and frustration he made to follow her, but Miriam quickly stole his time as he had distracted her study partner.
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Sarah was understandably riled up, even though nobody had really done anything wrong. Quickly she realised the source of her frustration - she’d worked all morning with Miri on that spell, and while it wasn’t done yet, it was still good work. With no reference, she couldn’t tell if it was below or above average time for a spell but a part of her suspected creating spells at all was beyond most people. Without Miriam, she’d not have been able to, and would be stuck with her suite of a dozen various medical spells.
She didn’t want a lecture on the ethics of it. She wanted John to look at her with that proud gaze on his face and give that little nod he gave, telling her she's done well. She’d expected that to happen.
Ducking under a branch in the general direction that Mitchell had been working, she started some deep breathing exercises to cool down and get into a mindset where she could help him. In her knowledge, she would eventually be able to regenerate limbs, but that was an ability of a higher tier, and her spells didn’t even touch on the concepts involved so she was largely left to hypothesise on how it worked or if it even existed. For now, the main injury was mental.
She imagined the increased Willpower from the system was what even allowed him to get up this morning. She’d read stories of people wasting away after a maiming, losing purpose in life. She wouldn’t let that happen to him.
Cooled, she began going through what she recalled on disabled people, or persons with disabilities depending on what they prefer. The key was to treat him as a person first. Her Strength was poor, so she could go and ask him for help, offering her own in return. That would be a good way to start a conversation. She knew she had to tell him about their attempts to fix him, though she wouldn’t put it that way. She’d put it as ‘If it were me, I’d want to have my body whole’.
That might work, though that only solved her own problem. She knew she was supposed to encourage his independence, so she pre-committed to helping him if he asked. She already knew she would, but the pre-committing might help her react quickly enough where he’d see it as an ‘of course’ rather than a ‘oh, I have to help the cripple’. She’d make sure she complimented him on his reaction to the injury so far, noting that he was barely limping at all anymore, to draw his attention to his strengths.
Goals helped, realistic ones, so when she helped with the branches she’d measure their pace and set a point to finish at. Getting to that point should provide a confidence boost as well, and get him back to making goals and plans to achieve them. She knew there was more she could do, but she didn’t want to throw the entire book at him.
It took her the better part of an hour to find him, and when she did it was because she’d heard a loud crash and a whoop of joy. The first thing she did was cast the new cleaning spell on his prone form. He was conscious, but his chest was heaving with the effort to regain his breath, and the cause was clear - an absolutely mangled tree stump with the hatchet stuck into the base.
The three foot thick tree trunk lay on the forest floor, completely cleared of branches for the first ten feet, and Mitchell pushed himself up on his elbows beside it, face red and drenched with sweat but face split wide in a grin. “Oh, hey there Sarah. Thanks for the clean, though I’m still probably going to go for a swim later.”
Her brain short-circuited. “No problem.” Her mouth seemed to say of its own accord. “Did you want a hand?”
He stared at her, and her brain caught up with what she just said. Horror began to dawn on her face as she realised her words. After all the prep? All the study, I make a joke by accident?
He raised an eyebrow as she waited for the response. “With.. swimming? I think I can manage.”
“The tree. Would you like a hand with the tree?” She screamed in her mind. Why?! Why did I say it again?
He coughed. “If you think you can, then by all means. I was gonna mark it and get John to do it though.”
She sighed, glad nothing came of her faux-pas. “Good, I don’t think I could’ve carried that.”
Mitchell went quiet for a moment, before reaching his good hand out to the sky. “Help me up?”
She did, noting that he seemed heavier than he should be for his size. This time, though, she declined to comment, as she noticed her brain running through hand-related words to avoid.
The one-handed man turned about, gazing into the forest. “So, did you just come out here to make hand jokes?”
Sarah sighed again. He’d noticed. “No, I came out here to talk to you.”
Brushing off the fallen trunk, Mitchell dropped down, pulling a water bottle from a small pack she’d not seen tucked behind a tree. Taking a deep drink, he cleared the trunk next to him and offered the water. She took a seat, but declined the drink. “Well, talk. What’s got you?”
She sighed in frustration. “Honestly, Mitchell, it’s you. What the hell’s going on in your head?”
A look of puzzlement and offence flashed across his face for a brief moment before he schooled his features. “What do you mean?”
“You lost a hand. You were moping for all last night and the morning. Now you seem fine.”
Mitchell shrugged. “It’s life. Always been that way. You do your best to roll with the punches, but sometimes you duck when you should’ve weaved and end up clocked in the jaw by the long arm of life. Yea, I lost a hand. Did you know that my stomach is fixed though?”
“Your stomach? What’s wrong with your stomach?”
Mitchell paused, taking another drink. “Work and talk? I want to get one more tree felled before dinner, and with you here I think we can go for a bigger one. I wonder what George caught this time?”
“He’s just making the rabbit into stew, I think.” Sarah recalled.
“‘Just making stew,’ she says.” Mitchells stomach growled, and he smiled. “Sounds delicious. C’mon, the harder we work the hungrier we’ll be and the better it will taste.”
Sarah began to regret coming out here. The two walked through the forest, Mitchell inspecting trees and declaring them ‘not right’ or ‘not today’. She couldn’t tell what metric he was using to determine that, but eventually he came across a tree that had a small score in the trunk, and he moved towards it, pressing his palm up against it and closing his eyes. Not five seconds later, they snapped open, and where was once easy-going banter she found solid, cold determination. “This one.”
With a thunk, the hatchet buried itself into the trunk, Mitchell’s one good arm holding the handle. With another, wood chips sprayed out from the impact, and he began working the hatchet. It’d be a while before he was through.
Without preamble, Mitchell starting speaking between swings of the hatchet. “When I was younger, maybe 15 or 16, my family went to church every week. Baptist. It was a funny religion. Dunk yourself into a tank, and all your sins are washed away and you can get into Heaven. ‘Why not just do a dunk right before you die?’ I always thought, ‘then you can do whatever you want.’ But my youth pastor, he said that in order for Baptism to be real, you have to truly mean it. You have to regret your actions and be ready to atone for them, which meant if I did evil with the intent of saying sorry later, I would never truly be able to regret such an action in the eyes of God.”
Sarah nodded along, unsure why he was bringing this up. “That checks out. It’s like the rich evading taxes. They just pay them when they get caught and say sorry, but we all know they’re just gonna do it again.”
Mitchell paused for a chuckle. “Yea, that’s a good one. Anyways, so we went to church every Sunday. Well, that part of my family did. I was with my dad every other weekend, so I only went to church half of the time.”
“Divorced parents?”
“You didn’t know that? Huh. Yea, my parents divorced when I was around 7. Pa was a cheater and Ma was a manipulator, so I’m surprised they even made it that far. They were nasty to each other and didn’t do much to keep me or my brothers out of it.”
“But that wasn’t your fault.” Sarah at least knew what to say here.
Mitchell looked at her with - was that pity? “No, it wasn’t my fault. I knew that from the start, even when one or the other would get drunk and say it was.” Her heart raged at that. She knew all too well what an effect on a kid something like that could have.
“You were talking about church.” She supplied, hoping to get him back on track.
“Right. Well, it was hard to truly be a part of the community when I was only there half the time. My mother had remarried, see, and her new husband was very much into the church, though was very much not a practising Christian outside of it. There was tension. Eventually I found the hypocrisy to be too much when he was accepted as an elder, and I left the church.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It… wasn’t. Not really. I’d always thought the grass was greener on the other side, and I dove in. Drugs, girls, fights, you name it, within a year of leaving the church I’d done all three. With so much being different, I started to change too. Less sure. Less trusting. Less compassionate. Then eventually my mental health started to slide, and I fell into depression.”
“Did you..?”
“Yea, I did. The night before an easter service, I stayed up until 2 in the morning. When everyone was asleep, I snuck into my mom’s medicine cabinet, grabbed the bulk bottle of extra strength painkillers and took them all, 4 pills at a time. When the doctors pumped my stomach, they said it was at least 54.”
“Ibuprofen…” Sarah couldn’t decide wether to sigh or hug the man beside her, but he moved on.
“Yea. Turns out, Overdosing means different things for different drugs, so all I got was trip to the hospital, a stay in the psyche ward, and further isolation out of it. Oh, and a severely damaged stomach lining. Spicy foods would make me puke, milk never sat well, and whenever I drank any drink with fizz, the shock of it sent me into hiccups. Every. Single. Time.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“No, it really wasn’t. Not compared to what could have happened.”
“And you say… it’s fixed now?”
Mitchell took a break and beamed at her. “It is! I can’t wait to find or make some kind of beer so I can drink it in peace. Tonight's stew would’ve been too rich to eat, but now I’m looking forward to it. If life gets back to normal, I’ll be able to take oral medicine again without specific dosages. My mind is clear, my depression a memory, and all I had to do was lose a hand? The only thing I’d change is which hand, that one was my favourite one. I hope it at least tasted good.”
He returned to chopping, and she couldn’t think of any other way so she just blurted it out. “We’re working on a spell to fix it!”
The rhythmic thunk of the hatchet was replaced by a skitter as the hatchet failed to bite into the trunk and buried its head in the dirt at its base. Mitchell stared at the hatchet. “Thanks for your help, Sarah, but I think I want to finish this tree alone.”
“Are you sure? I could stick around, just to lo-”
“Alone is good.” He answered, gaze not wavering from where he stared at the small axe.
Sarah ran through multiple objections in her mind, the main one being that she didn’t want to leave a cripple out in the woods when there were wolves about. Other than George, the rest of them really should be travelling in pairs. It tended to dissuade lone attackers. George just killed anything that attacked him, if Nimbus didn’t get there first.
She only found one that would make any sense and have a chance of working, but if she was wrong it could damage things irreparably. Like his hand? She went for it.
“Whatever you’re planning, I want in.” Mitchells gaze snapped from the hatchet to her face and his eyes were heavy with consideration. Apparently he found what he was looking for, because he nodded.
“No, you don’t.” He finally answered, and internally she let out a cheer. She’d been right!
Sarah spit onto a nearby bush, something she’d not normally do but felt right in this situation. “You don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t want.”
“Fine. You can come if you promise to stop distracting my fiance with this stupid ‘fixing me’ bullshit. She has precisely one combat ability. ONE! She’s in more danger than I am!”
Sarah grit her teeth. “It’s not a waste, but fine. I’ll let you tell her yourself when we get back though.”
He nodded. “Deal. Did you forget anything?”
She gestured at herself, wearing the robes and carrying her staff. “Like what?”
He pried the hatchet out of the tree. “Then come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going out, and I’m not coming back until I have a class and can carry my own weight.”
“So… nowhere?”
He shrugged and gave a half-hearted gesture into the woods away from camp. “I have a good feeling about that way.”
“A good feeling… You’re lucky I already agreed.”
Half-felled tree left behind, the duo made their way into the forest, one in search of adventure and the other trying to keep the first safe.
Neither of them saw the hooded figure retreat back into the forest in the other direction, face pale from the close call where that woman had almost spit on him.