He sat in the living room as his parents collected everything valuable they had. Regi Rayan Tantraxian sat in quiet ignorance as his world was changing rapidly. His parents were using words like moving, skeletons, windrow, and tantrax. For 7-year-old regi, it just meant he wouldn’t be playing with Suzzy anymore. But apparently, Suzzy was moving to tantrax too. She had said it herself. Suzzy was so smart, she could say the word tantrax. Regi was going to miss all the uncles and aunties he knew. He would level up and take care of all the skeletons and monsters who made his parents sad. He would pick up the best class of them all, Ranger. Yes, he would become the best ranger from Windrow, nay from all of dravos.
Regi was told to pick up his minibag from the closet and wear his shoes as this was going to be a long journey. He sat in the medium-sized cart where Suzzy and her parents were already sitting. Suzzy’s father was a fighter, whereas Suzzy’s mother worked with his parents at the market. What they did at the market was out of Regi’s comprehension. The cart started moving. This was like a picnic, a week-long picnic for Regi.
“Let’s just hope we don’t encounter any monsters on the way,” Regi’s father said warily. “Don’t worry, the military has it under control. If it wasn’t, they won’t let a fighter like me leave at all,” Suzzy’s father reassured. The reassurance was made to calm everyone’s nerves. The road to tantrax was filled with monsters, they would run into some monsters or undead.
And they did. On the fourth day, several skeletons stood, blocking the path to tantrax. The wagon driver took a u-turn but it was too late. The skeletons charged and caught up to the wagon in no time. Suzzy’s father, the only fighter in the group got down and started his defense of the wagon. In Regi’s small eyes, it was a glorious battle, until the wagon moved far away from the fighting scene and Regi realized they were leaving Suzzy’s father behind and he was fighting a losing battle, alone. Suzzy and Regi cried a lot that night. It was sad to lose someone close but sadder still to leave someone alone this way. It was a memory that would stay fresh in Regi’s mind to this day. They finally reached tantrax and normal life continued. Suzzy and Regi became neighbors, went to the same school, and had similar ambitions about leveling.
At age fifteen, preliminary schooling ended. Regi and Suzzy sat on the playground bench after the last day at school. “So, you still sure about the whole ranger thing? You will have to live in the forest for an extended period to get that class. Also, the harsh living conditions will lead to the leveling system to offer you a different class every day,” Suzzy broke the awkward silence. “I think this has been debated enough, the ranger class suits me and my loner existence. I am leaving for the Hage forest tomorrow. I will not be venturing more than a couple of days away from tantrax anyway. I will get the ranger class offered to me in about a week and then when I get to level 20, I will be ready to find and challenge a dungeon.” Regi told his plan in a calm voice. “Ok, dungeon ranger. Just be careful to not accept the woodcutter class,” Suzzy said in a mocking voice. Regi was used to Suzzy’s sense of humor. This was most probably going to be their last talk before they headed their separate ways. Regi was uncomfortable in the awkward silence. He picked up his bag and said, “Suzzy, I will meet you again, don’t be a stranger”. “Ok, Ranger” Suzzy quipped back with a smile.
Suzzy sat for a moment alone in the playground. All of her memories with Regi flooded in. The loss of her father, the support from Regi’s family, and the apparent closeness she felt towards him. Yes, Suzzy was pretty sure she liked Regi a lot. But her father’s death had made Regi feel a lot of guilt, even to this day. Suzzy for him was the girl who was scared to lose her father, and part of a broken family his parents had supported from the ground up. While Suzzy had walked away from that trauma, Regi never did. Anyway, Suzzy was going to the mage college, starting next week. A whole new life, a whole lot of magic for the next four years. Suzzy hoped she would specialize while she was in college. Very less people did.
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Present Day
Steve woke up in the middle of the night. The pillow was working just as intended. He walked downstairs and saw Madilyn working in the kitchen. “Oh, you’re done sleeping. Glen’s been waiting for you outside for a while now. Said he wants to talk to you,” said Madilyn while scaling an unknown kind of fish.
Steve stepped out of the food stop to Glen with his hands at his back, head down, and in a thinking trance. “Healer Steve reporting for duty sir,” Steve said, breaking the silence with a mocking salute. “No magic training for you today, lets go to the southern wall where you can finish your station,“ Glen said as he walked south.
Once they reached the half-completed healer’s station, Steve noticed the reinforced village wall. Steve got to work fast as Glen instructed him on his job in the coming battle. “You have to stay in this room when the battle is on. If things go well, I will announce the end of the battle. If things go not so well, we will close the doors and you will run with all civilians in the direction of tantrax,” Glen paused for a moment. “It is protocol for me as the martial leader of this place to inform you. Astria will stock this room with bandages and mana potions. Use the potions sparsely.”
Steve continued with the healer’s room. A certain numbness had entered Steve’s mind. Hundreds or maybe thousands of skeletons were going to show up today. Steve was expecting serious patients for the first time. Were his healer levels up for the challenge? Was the fighting force present in Windrow remotely enough? Steve’s mind was creating a vortex of possibilities. Possibilities of success, possibilities of loss, possibilities of .....
“Steve, you need to relax with that frown buddy, we are the ones fighting,” Astria broke Steve’s vortex of dark thoughts while pushing a trolley full of bandage raw materials. “I’ve got Madilyn’s permission to keep you here, making these bandages before sundown. I would have helped, but I need to be with the mage adventuring team. A lot of magical training has to go around in this place,” Astria pulled a wand from her bag of holding, “Sit on the table,” She said while tapping the wand on the hard brick “patient” table. She handed the wand to Steve, “This is my spare wand, use it to concentrate your mana flows onto wounds. If you come across anything serious, don’t try to heal the person completely. If it’s not critical, just use the bandages.”
Astra left the healer's room after putting down five mana potions on the shelf. Steve now had one job left: creating bandages. The diligent handyman started stitching up cotton bandages with the ample raw material provided. With around twenty people in the battle, a hundred bandages of varying sizes would do.
[ Handyman class level 20 ]
[ Class Feature: Stitching Proficiency - level one Obtained ]
[ Stitching Proficiency: faster stitching ]
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As the sun set, Windrow was ready for battle. The mages, spread on the village wall, with their wands ready for spell casting. Regi with his pile of arrows sat at the highest point of a wall pillar. The sword-fighting force was on the ground taking notes from Glen. “Radiant attacks work great on necrotic creatures. Does anyone of you have radiant attacks?” Silence from the crowd. “Fine, try to push the enemy into the bunker. They will have high numbers. Gather up and fight. Don't try to solo this.” Glen quickly realized that he was instructing fighters a hundred-plus levels below himself and this was going to go down to the wire. “Tracker should be back here any minute now.”
And as expected, tracker returned with a swift pace. “Skeleton number unknown, too many for visual counting. Two skeleton knights on horses and a lich.” Tracker repeated the message on the wall.
So they came, like a proper army. Forming an ivory covering on the horizon. Regi was the first one to behold and attack. Fire arrows fell on skeletons. This was no time to save resources. Regi looked at his shortsword with a frown, maybe the day to join the battlefield was here. The skeletons did not care about this crowd-control effort. Melting bones were crushed by wave upon wave of the ivory tide. Regi started losing arrows at a higher rate.
Astria was quick to pick up the government-issued fireball scroll and cast five fireballs toward the incoming wave. Four of which hit areas with high skeleton density. While the fifth fireball was dispelled by the lich. The lich wore a golden crown and had a bone wand. The lich was with the fifth wave. These waves would surely overwhelm their ground forces. She had to quickly find a way to crowd control. It was at this moment that the astral mages started spellcasting. Their attacks were pin-point fire attacks that hit individual skeletons and stopped them. Astria joined them in constant spell-casting.
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Glen stood in the front, away from other fighters nearer to the bunker. As the first wave came closer to the wall, Glen took a deep breath, “Radiant Thunder Mark VI” The Paladin of Sera stood over the bunker as the bunker was filled with falling skeletons trying to climb using each other as support. Radiant sparks ran throughout the bunker as the first wave of skeletons melted away and filled the bunker halfway with molten bone. The second wave had the same fate. The bunker was now filled to the brim with burnt bone and Glen was out of radiant attacks. He backed up to the fighter circle.
The incoming wave surrounded the fighters. The flamboyant fighters were quick in their attacks. Sam in tandem with Glen began clearing skeletons in a tag-team fighting style. Skeletons were falling left and right forming piles of their own. The battle at this pace would be a cakewalk despite enemy numbers. It was when the lich cast an area of effect spell around the fighters. Slowly but surely, the skeletons around the fighters started to join themselves into a hemispherical dome of bone around the fighters. “They are forming a bone dome.” Astria was the first one to note. The skeletons formed a pattern by using their legs and one hand and kept one hand open for attack on the insiders of the dome.
The flambouyant team was flustered. One of the members got his leg mauled by a group of skeleton claws. This dome was a problem for the mages. You could not dispel the dome. You could not attack the dome because of its inhabitants. Skeletons kept piling layers upon layers on the dome trying to cut the air supply. The fighters cut off the hands that attacked them inside but the cutting of air supply was affecting them.
“Unforgiving Slash,” Tracker cut into the outside of the dome to no effect.
“Fire swords,” Sam used the remaining air in the dome in a risky move to burn a hole into the top of the dome. A swift jump to the top of the dome and a fire strike did the job. Some skeletons craked under the fire, but the dome was intact. The fighters realized that they had been stuck here for some time.
Outside the dome, things became grim too. With no fighters to stop the incoming waves, the skeletons reached the village wall. Regi picked up his shortsword and leaped into the skeleton wave, He and Tracker formed a team with a completely different fighting style in comparison to Sam and Glen. Fast movements and quick and light attacks were the highlights of this skeleton-clearing session. Astria just opened fire with all the four remaining scrolls she had. Scrolls of radiant thunder, fireballs, ice spikes, and earth golems were initialized into battle. The earth golems entered the battle with Regi and Tracker in the middle. The battlefield was filled with scroll effects, a skeleton dome, and two non-conventional fighters in the middle.
Regi, using arrows in his hands for swift attacks. A dodge from skeletal hands, an arrow into a skull, and Regi was in the battle like never before. Tracker on the other hand was using skeleton structure dismantling tactics. They were both overwhelmed. This is the moment when a dark bolt hits Regi on the shoulder. Tracker saw as Regi fell to the ground from the impact. He got up and fell a lull in his right shoulder, this was bad news. Astria jumped from the wall to reduce the distance from the lich. This creature was controlling the battlefield to their detriment. Astria controlled the air as she descended from the village wall, her wand in hand and a very dark expression on her face.
A one-on-one battle ensued between the mage and the lich. The mages on the wall and Tracker took care of clearing an area for this duel. The duel between attack bolts and the elements. The lich controlled its bolts, but astria controlled the air around it to dodge them. “The earth is my friend,” Astria angled her wand towards the earth as two slabs of solid earth stood up vertically in the ground. Astria brought both her hands together to press the lich between the two walls. The lich disappeared only leaving his golden crown where he had stood. Astria cleared the earth's spell and shouted,” Tracker, destroy the crown.”
Tracker leaped with a dagger in hand and the crown was destroyed. The lich’s scream filled the air as the crown evaporated into thin air.
“Sword thrust boom,” the flamboyant team captain, Peter with his other three teammates created impact waves to break a portion of the dome large enough for escape. The fighters, out of their imprisonment charged the remaining waves. The lich’s scream brought the two skeleton knights into battle. Each skeleton knight is equipped with an iron shield and a sword. They were both highly mobile units, running and covering distance towards the wall.
One of the skeleton knights leaped towards the wall, high enough to reach the five mages. The skeletal knight got hold of one of them and pushed their head into the wall. Before the skeleton knight could attack another mage, Regi’s shortsword blocked his path. Looking at Regi, it was clear that his right hand had lost control and sensation, but he was soldiering on with his left hand. Sam quickly ran to the wall to aid him.
Glen engaged the other skeleton knight on the battlefield. Steve was watching all of this from behind the safety of the wall. Tracker entered the healer's room with a flamboyant team member with a mauled leg. “He can’t stand coz ... well you can see it right?” Tracker said casually as he put the patient on the hard operating table. Tracker walked out as Steve was left alone with an injured fighter, writhing in pain, blood dripping from his long infected-looking wound. Steve had not prepared for this volume of blood. He was stunned into silence. This was beyond words. He was suspicious earlier but now he was thankful to the team for not providing him with lunch. ‘What is it that doctors do in such situations? Clean the wound yes clean the wound.’ He was thinking but not moving... as if paralyzed, Steve stumbled to the water bucket in the corner of the room.
He poured water on the wound and cleared the dirt with some cotton. His gesture was answered with screams and a collar grab from the patient. “What are you doing, you damn fool? HEAL ME....” Steve quickly drew the wooden wand and started reconstructing some of the muscle the fighter had lost. More screaming from the patient. Steve put some cotton in his ears as he concentrated his mana flow. Tracker reentered the room. In his arms was a young lady with blood leaking from her cranium. “I don’t think I need to explain the situation,” Tracker just deposited her on the table and left again. Steve stopped healing the fighter. “Sorry, head trumps leg,” Steve said, turning 180 degrees to his more urgent patient. ‘OK, head reconstruction... I’ve never tried this.. here goes.’ Steve managed to stop further blood loss, in the brain tissue.
[ Healer Class level 15 reached ]
[ Class feature: Tissue reconstruction obtained ]
[ No mana leakage for tissue reconstruction ]
Steve felt mana drained. He gulped a mana potion as he picked up a bandage for the fighter. With the inner tissues reconstructed, The bandage was used to cover his legs quickly.
‘ok, I'll passively heal this fellow later,’ Steve thought to himself as he turned to look at the lady mage lying on the platform. She had two blunt blows on her head and minor cuts on her legs. Steve concentrated the mana flow towards her head and bandaged her legs simultaneously. The gashes on her head were too large for bandages, Steve speculated they were too big for all of his mana pool. He closed his eyes to concentrate on the massive amounts of tissue reconstruction at hand. The world became silent as if Steve had entered a mind space of his own, a certain calmness despite the daunting challenge in front of him. His mana moved into the head injury like a healing liquid, adjusting, and reconstructing the vital organ of the young mage.
This scene of calmness was beholden to all the warriors who returned after fighting to check on the injured. All undead had been defeated, but the damage this time seemed severe as many of the warriors watching the healer do his thing, themselves wanted some amount of attention.
Cranial tissue complexity turned out to be more than expected and Steve broke out of his calm mind state back to a reality where he was drained of mana and breathing heavily himself.
“He needs to be better,” Astria said while she entered the room, opened the outer window, sat on the ground, and placed one mana potion bottle on the ground. “I got a pan as you asked,” Madylin excitedly placed the pan in front of Astria, clearly up to something. Glen, watching this offered his broadsword freshly warm from slaying skeleton knights.
Astria kept the pan on the warm broadsword and started heating the mana potion in the pan. “Seems fancy, but I am just heating a mana potion. Its vapors can also be controlled by you or a higher-level mage so that you don't run out of mana repeatedly. Consuming too many mana potions can reduce your brain function permanently. Remember mana in the air is as good as your mana if you can use it.” Several mages downed their mana potions into the warm pan.
For the next hour, all warriors and mages saw in silence how Astria guided the newbie on one of the most complicated problems in healing magic. By the time they were done all local stock of mana was exhausted. All other warriors were bandaged with a promise of healing the next morning during training. The hurt warriors and mages were understanding. Glen just briefly put a hand on Steve’s shoulder before leaving. Astria took a fat hardbound book out of her bag of holding named “Mana Manipulation: Vol 1”. “Read it as soon as possible, there are 39 more volumes from where this one came from,” Astria for a change put Glen’s broadsword on her shoulder and followed Glen with a Glen-like expression.
Steve started putting blankets on both the wounded warriors on the raised platforms, they would rest here, and he might rest here too. Madylin passed him a sleeping bag and his pillow. After everyone left the healer’s chamber, Steve was ready for his hour-long sleep, Regi entered the room and gave a swift hug to Steve. Shocked by the sudden presence of the ranger, Steve pushed back regaining balance. “Thanks for saving her, thanks for saving Suzzy,” Regi exclaimed with now teary eyes. He left the room at the speed with which he had entered.
Steve took a moment to contemplate what had happened in this room for the last three hours. How he might be healing people with the gusto of a handyman, but humans would produce secondary effects that mere super bandages would never.
“Blood is red and humans are emotional I guess,” he exclaimed in the silence of the healer’s center.