After Lee declared he was going to create a healing spell, he realized something very important. He didn’t know where to start. He understands that he has the knowledge to create the spell, but he doesn’t know what element to use, or if he has to combine some of them to get the element required. Frankly, he doesn’t know how to make an advanced affinity yet.
Anya’s brain stopped working once Lee claimed that he was going to create a healing spell. “And how are you going to accomplish this?!” She exclaimed. Lee, berating himself for proclaiming something so early, says, “With time of course. I will most likely need to go to the Consortium of Magical Scholars for some information first.” Lee begins to stand up to leave and continues talking. “By the way, I assume I'm hired? Also, what is the pay? I never asked.”
Coming out of her stupor Anya says, “It’s two gold a month. You also can get personal appointments during your free time by yourself. Most people don’t do that as they don’t like sick or injured people walking to their home at random times. There is always someone here to take care of them.” Lee nodding slowly comes to a dire and embarrassing conclusion. “So you’re saying that with the fifteen copper I currently have, I have to live for a month?” Anya winces hearing how poor Lee is. “Well, if you can treat the rest of the people in the in-patient rooms I'm sure I could give you an advance. You’d be doing a month of work anyways.” Lee nods and heads for the in-patient rooms.
It took more than four hours to heal the rest of the in-patients and word quickly spread around Neldam of the Human healer healing illnesses of all kinds. Lee walks out of the last in-patient and heads to the door to the urgent care waiting room.
The door opens and Lee stops with his jaw to the floor. Looking at the room full of people, all the chairs are taken and people are standing around waiting. The poor receptionist for urgent care is overwhelmed. It’s nearly midnight and it only got busier. Lee quickly walks up to the woman and tries to get her to explain what's going on.
“They’re here to see you to get healed.” The mid twenties looking female elf receptionist is nearly having a mental breakdown in the current situation. Lee, dumbfounded, quickly asks. “For me? I just started here today! How do they even know I’m here?” The Elf receptionist trying to quickly get the paperwork from someone filed, says. “Word spreads fast and nobody can heal all the kinds of sicknesses you can. Some of the healers can heal some of them with surgery but those are the dire kinds of sickness. You’ve cleared out the in-patients in a single day! What else did you expect!”
Lee is tired from staying up so long, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’s going to have to pull an all-nighter. Lee begins to heal everybody one by one.
It’s nearly six in the morning by the time things calm down. By this time all the other people working in the urgent wing pitched in to organize and coordinate who got healed, what they probably got healed from, and how to avoid it in the future. Lee had to tell every single one of them that he wasn’t sure about the diagnosis and he was just guessing about the cause, but the Elves getting healed never cared. Lee was in an unused in-patient room about to collapse when Anya opens the door. Looking up to see her come in, Lee can see past her and into the corridor. The Elves who helped coordinate are sneaking looks into the room to see him, they have faces of awe and respect.
Anya has a strained smile as she closes the door, she takes a moment to take a deep breath and then says. “What a fucking disaster.” She sits down on the bed Lee is lying in. “Well, good job I guess. I hope you know that you’re probably famous now. A Human in Neldam is already enough to make you famous, but this?” She waved her hand all around the room. “This shit will get you noticed, and not always in a good kind of way.” She begins to look sorrowfully in the air. “You’re not the first person to make some waves, but take some advice from me. No matter how much good you do, someone will find a way to make it bad. People will accuse you of many things, from not fully healing them, to giving them the wrong advice, all the way down to ‘He healed someone else before my friend and they died.’ It’s a double edged sword.” She looks towards Lee and sighs. She stands up. “Go home and rest, take this.” She places five gold coins into his hands. “Quickly, before more people show up to look for you.”
Lee barely heard what she said and needed no further motivation to go home for sleep. Stepping out of the room and into the halls, connector, and street, people stared in awe. Lee wanted to heal but he didn’t want to be a damn celebrity. Embarrassed, he quickly gets back to his home. He falls asleep on top of the copper coins and furs without bothering to spend time moving them out of the way. He’s out cold before his head hits the pillow.
================================================
Lee had the pleasure of waking up to a banging on the door. Wiping the drool from his mouth, Lee lumbered over to the door. Opening the door he was greeted by a drop in temperature and by Neia and Elder Sono. Neia, pausing with her fist pulled back to knock again looks at Lee with her piercing glowing green eyes of displeasure and anger, she says, “I leave you alone for a day and the whole city knows about you and your and I quote ‘all curing’ ability. Do you remember what I told you in the forest? Did that warning mean nothing to you?” Before Neia could continue on her verbal tirade, Elder Sono jumps in. “What’s done is done Neia.” He looks towards Lee with a little bit a pity, “Your presence has been requested at a meeting of the council. I’m afraid it’s not optional.” Elder Sono then looks stressed. Neia snaps. “Grab your shit and let’s go, maybe you can buy some shoes too. Didn’t even realize you don't have any, did you?”
Lee is shocked at his wakeup call, as well as a tad fearful of Neia. He has no ‘Shit’ to grab, so he just walks out into the street. Looking down he realizes that he indeed, has not been wearing any shoes. Ashamed, he doesn’t say anything and just waits for them to lead him to wherever they must go.
They traveled through the bottom city and started to go up the tree, they stopped about half way up the tree and Elder Sono led Lee into a building, it was a cobblers store. Ashamed still, he quickly tried on a few pairs and bought a pair of normal looking leather shoes, and a sturdy pair of heavy leather boots. He put the heavy boots into storage and put the normal leather shoes on. Trying to get the cobbler to give him change for a gold was the bigger issue because his whole purchase was only six silver. Eventually he managed to get his change and meet Neia and Sono back outside.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
They traveled the tree all the way to the very top, taking one of the very sturdy bridges with lanterns below it. They reached the top and center of the hollowed portion of the tree, where a round platform was suspended attached by pillars leading upwards.
On the platform there were about twenty Elves mingling. As they stepped onto the platform, the mingling stopped and an elf that appeared to be in the age of his mid forties or early fifties, wearing high end distinguished looking clothes, spoke. “Are all present?” Nobody speaks. He nods. “I Anix Hethal, hereby announce the start of the council talks. Would anybody like to start?”
Lee, now completely out of his depth, is scared shitless that he is in some major trouble. Neia of all people raises her hand and after a moment, begins to speak. “I will start by saying that the Human Lee Barnes does not know anything about how our world works, he is from another. He doesn’t know the history of anywhere, and didn’t even know we existed as a race less than a week ago.” Seemingly done with her part she moves over towards an Elf that’s wearing very expensive looking robes.
An awkward silence happens for around ten seconds while everybody looks a little dumbfounded. Soon, a male elf with red eyes speaks. “I ask the Human Lee Barnes for clarification.” Lee simply says. “I died in my world and appeared in Shadowgrove forest less than a week ago. I was brought to Neldam by a pair of monster hunters.”
Another awkward silence. The same red eyed Elf says. “May I have your word on that?” Lee simply nods and says, “You have my word.”
Another awkward silence. As Lee begins to wonder what the fuck is happening, he looks towards Neia, spotting her pantomiming the thumb and pinky oath she and Ruven did in the forest. Now extremely embarrassed, Lee puts his thumbs and pinkies together and presses them to his head for three seconds while saying, “By my word.”
Suddenly a little faint glowing light pulsed from him. Lee had no idea what the fuck was happening in his life anymore. The others seemingly didn’t see it or they didn’t care.
The Elves whispered between each other just before the Elf with the fancy robe that Neia is by asks a question. “Lee Barnes, it's come to my attention that you have been mana infused by Neia Sindris. Is this correct?” Lee nods. The same elf asks another question. “In return for this mana infusion, you have sworn to tell all who ask that you were done so by, and I specifically state, Dark Elf Neia Sindris of Neldam in Shadowgrove Forest.” Lee nods once more and says yes.
More whispers come from the Elves as Lee just stands there thinking. I fucked up. Why did I choose to heal everybody that came in a single fucking day. What a dumb fucking choice, intelligence giving ‘Mental Acuity’ my ass.
The original male Elf, Anix Hethal, speaks. “Would you care to explain what happened at the clinic yesterday in your own words?”
Lee says “I was brought to the clinic by Elder Sono to meet Anya. We were there to try and find me some work while I stay in your city. After a short interview she took me to an in-patient to test my ability. It worked and we returned to her office to discuss the differences between her knowledge and mine. We discovered that Dark Elves, or perhaps the world at large, are not aware of why people get sick. I will use the example Anya gave me. You all know that when you drink dirty water, or old food, that you get sick. But, you do not know the reason why that causes you to get sick. I do, so after teaching Anya I asked if she could create a healing spell to cure illnesses. She told me that healing spells are not created, but that they are given by gods and goddesses, or by receiving your class.” Lee decides to leave out the part of declaring to create a healing spell. “It was at this point that Anya and I agreed to a two gold payment for healing the other in-patients, as I have no coin from having arrived on your world this past week.”
Taking a deep breath, Lee waits for another question. A female elf in her mid thirties decides to take a turn. “In this situation, did you feel compelled by Anya Stoli to heal or suffer consequences?” Lee instantly responds to the allegations to Anya. “No, she was simply offering me my pay in advance to help me get situated.”
The female elf nods and then says. “May I have someone attest to that as a witness?” Neia raises her hand. “Witnessed.”
The Elf by Neia seems to notice that Lee is completely out of his depth and asks another question. “Do you know of anybody here other than Neia and Elder Sono?” Lee looks around and answers. “No. I just know that this is a council meeting.”
He scowls at the elf who asked for a witness. “Well, let us introduce ourselves so you know who you’re actually talking to. My name is Nitis Sindris, Elder of Magic.” He gives a slight bow. Anix Hethal speaks next. “I am Anix Hethal, Elder of Elves.” Another slight bow. The female elf who asked for a witness casually says. “Judis Rowsen, Elder of Law.” The red eyed Elf is next. “Rosenthal Equitis, Elder of Commerce.”
Ahh, she ensured that they were not at fault before I even knew who I was talking to. Not that I was gonna blame them anyways. Also the Elder of Magic is Neia’s relative?
Elder Sono just joins in to finish the ensemble. “Sonar Sono, Elder of Others.”
Anix says. “Do we have any more questions or requests for the Human Lee Barnes?” Rosenthal asks, “If we offer incentives, will you continue to heal at the clinic? Given your new reputation, I would imagine lots of us would continue to go there to seek you out.” “Lee breathes out, “Yes, I will continue to work at the clinic, but I will not be forced to continue healing because the tide is never ending. I will have a cut off point and go home to rest.” Rosenthal nods and simply says “Reasonable. No further questions at this time.”
Judis waves her hand as in ‘No thanks’. Nitis does have a question. “Will you stop by the Consortium of Magical Scholars to have us ask questions about your world and run tests on your ability?” Lee, deciding that his healing has already gotten out of control, makes a harsh decision. “No, I will not. I will go to the Consortium to study, if given the opportunity. But not to give information that I do not share freely.” Lee decides that at the end of the day, he is valuable. They can’t just make him disappear after healing everybody, and he also has the ability to do something nobody else can do. They can’t force him to do anything.
Nitis nods, “You are free to roam our halls. If you change your mind, or have information you deem not secret, we would appreciate the knowledge.”
The others don’t seem to have any more questions. Neia stands up and says. “We appear to be done, I will take Lee back to his home.” She grabs his shoulder roughly and begins to manhandle him away angrily.
Yeah, It seems that I fucked something up for her big time.