Saying the Skill name in my mind does nothing. That’s the first difference from Lay-on-hands. I remember right at the beginning when I first arrived in this world, all I needed to do was say the Skill name mentally and then a flood of healing magic passed through my body. Sure, I was soon able to redirect it to make it focus on the worst wounds, but even without that the Skill was able to function by itself.
Apparently Flesh-Shaping isn’t so intuitive. Maybe that’s what it meant by losing ‘automatic’ healing? Fortunately, I’m not nearly as much a novice at this whole thing as I was a month ago.
Without actually dropping into meditation, I reach inside myself and pull out a strand of mana. With the amount of practice I’ve had doing this, it takes little more than a thought, though I do have to stop myself from automatically feeding it into my internal matrix – that’s all fixed for now.
But what should I do with it, then? I feel a little at a loss. It’s one thing to think of all the amazing potential possibilities of Flesh-Shaping; it’s another to try to work out where to start with them. I’m not keen on accidentally doing something irreversible to myself and then having no idea of how to fix it. That eliminates all ideas of enhancing my own body in some way.
Equally, I don’t want to risk doing something to Fenrir that I can’t undo. I consider testing out the combat potential of my new Skill – I’m sure if I asked him to, Fenrir would be able to quickly run down something in the forest and bring it back alive for me to practise on. I don’t want to do that, though – I’m already struggling with the concept of having a Class designed to enslave other beings; I don’t want to become a mad scientist too.
No, I see only one good option for me to choose right now. And, honestly, it’s probably the most important feature anyway: healing. After all, I only chose this option because I was more than reasonably sure that I would maintain at least some of my healing ability. Before I can consider crazy things like transforming into a beast at will or enhancing myself even more than my Class already has, I need to be sure that I can heal myself and my companions as easily as before.
But in order to heal, I need a wound. Unfortunately, Fenrir doesn’t have a handy injury which I can practise on. Nor do I. One of my other Bound might, but they’re off in the forest and don’t seem to have intentions of coming back any time soon. I grimace. I know what I need to do – it doesn’t make it more pleasant to contemplate, though.
Fenrir raises his head and sends a questioning feel down the Bond as I walk past him into the cave. I send him a wordless response of reassurance, letting him know that all is well. I don’t let on my plans to him even as I enter the alcove.
Withdrawing my knife, I hold it over the steaming pot of soup that I’ve got cooking on the stove. Letting the steam sterilise the blade, I pull it back after a minute or so. Giving it a couple of more minutes to cool down a bit, I hold the blade above my forearm, unease roiling in my belly.
It’s a little ironic that I’m in the same position as I was the first night I was here – contemplating hurting myself in order to test a new Skill. However, as similar as the situations are, there are also many differences. Key among those is the knowledge that even if I don’t manage to heal myself with my magic, my health regeneration will do it for me. A small cut like the one I’m planning on making will be gone within an hour. The only reason I’m even sterilising the blade is because I don’t want to risk introducing contamination which might complicate the healing process.
Reminding myself of that is enough to give me the courage that I lacked the first night I was here. Without allowing myself to think further, I lower the blade to touch my skin and draw it across my flesh.
That...doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, I find myself saying mentally even as the blood wells up and starts trickling over my skin. Maybe my pain resistance has just increased that much? Or something in one of my stats reduces the sensation of pain? Or it could be that Skill I got which manages sensations.
Whatever it is, it’s got me spellbound, the almost complete lack of pain belying the stream of red blood which drips steadily onto the floor of the cave. My fascination is broken with the sudden appearance of Fenrir, concern shooting urgently through the Bond. Maybe I should have done this outside, I contemplate as my eyes flick to the puddle already being created on the floor.
“I’m OK,” I tell my nervous guardian. “I’m just testing something.” Fenrir huffs as if to chide me for not warning him. Which, when I think of it, probably would have been a good idea. But I couldn’t help feeling I was doing something I should hide…. Anyway, I should get to my task before my health regeneration fixes it for me.
Once more reaching inside myself and drawing out a strand of mana, I draw it towards the wound. It’s the first time I’ve tried healing since working so intently on my matrix. Suddenly I realise that as I draw the mana towards my cut, I’m actually pulling it through the weave of my internal matrix. Maybe that’s why it’s so intricate? It has to touch all parts of my body? But what about the spaces between threads? Or is it not as straightforward as that?
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The state I find myself in is a bit strange, too. I’m physically looking at the wound, and yet I’m also looking at it with the strange focussed inner gaze that I’ve had before when it feels like my mind enters my body. It’s frankly rather disorientating and I find myself concentrating more on the metaphysical view than the physical one. Otherwise, I reckon that if I think too hard about it, I’ll end up giving myself an aneurysm or something.
The more I focus on healing from inside my body, the less connection I feel to my physical surroundings, and the more I realise that the state is remarkably similar to when I’m in meditation. Or maybe this is a change due more to Flesh-Shaping rather than my new familiarity with my internal world.
Either way, my mind slips easily into the state, directing the mana through my channels until it reaches the point that I sense is damaged. As I move closer to my wound, I realise that the Energy channels are actually moving. There were no channels which led directly to the wound before; there are now. So that’s how it works.
But instead of reaching the end of a golden thread, the closest point to the wound is actually one of the curves that bends back towards the centre. I wait for a moment, wondering if the mana will know what to do: it always had before. I’m not terribly surprised when it doesn’t. Instead, it just sits in my Energy channel, shifting back and forth a little.
Looks like I need to direct it in some way, I muse. But how do I get it from inside the channel to the flesh? It’s a bit like...an artery. The section of flesh needs blood, but the liquid is held within arteries. So what does the body do? Have capillaries to transport the blood to everywhere it needs to go. I need to do something like that.
But how? Do I need to create more Energy channels? Surely not. If I did, I’d need to have done that every time I healed myself with Lay-on-hands, and I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen – there’s no evidence of it. Heck, if Kalanthia’s words are anything to go by, Bastet, River, and the others don’t even have Energy channels, yet I healed them perfectly well. I need to think about this in a different way.
How did it work with Lay-on-hands? My old Skill used to have two, well, three modes: the original ‘easy’ healing where all I did was mentally or verbally say ‘lay on hands’ and healing magic would flow into my body, spreading out evenly among my wounds; the ‘channelled’ mode where I could send more healing magic into my body than the automatic ten points, thereby keeping the healing going longer without re-casting the spell; and the ‘directed’ healing mode where I sent magic to specific parts of my body, giving more or less direction as to how the healing should take place.
I’d already eliminated the ‘easy’ mode as being possible any more. That was lost with Lay-on-hands. The channelled mode should be possible since that’s probably more about Energy-control than anything else. Frankly, I was using a superior version of the channelled mode when I was healing my internal matrix. As for the directed healing, that’s what I’m trying to do.
Am I overthinking it? After having learned about the internal matrix, has my thinking become too rigid? Is it less like blood in an artery and more like nutrients in the gut? I try to relax a little, focus less on my internal matrix and more on just...directing the magic to my wound.
Elation flashes through me as, without any difficulty, it works. The mana passes out of my Energy channel without any resistance, diffusing into the blackness beyond. The next difficulty actually comes from keeping the Energy together and not letting it diffuse too far – if I relaxed my concentration, I’m sure it would just vanish into my flesh.
Keeping it together isn’t too difficult, however, and I move my mana to fill the area around my wound. A wound which I realise is already more than half-healed. While faster healing is a massive bonus, right now it’s a bit annoying – I’d rather keep injuring myself to the minimum, thanks.
My mana saturates the area that I sense is around the wound – not that I can see it in any way. Then again, I don’t technically see anything here – it’s all about feeling things through some extra sense or something. I fill it with my intention to heal the wound.
It does nothing. I try to focus again on it healing me, applying my Will to it as strongly as I can.
Still nada. I frown. What am I missing here? Then I think back to the Skill description. It talked about the automatic knowledge being lost, but that I would maintain any knowledge I’d already gained. Does that mean…?
This time, instead of just willing it to heal, I tell it how. It’s not that different from what I did with my eye at the beginning, though I’m a little more detailed this time. Even though I’ve never studied medicine, never even thought of becoming a doctor, I suddenly realise that I know how things work here. I know about how the cells need to knit back together, how the capillaries need to match back up to carry my blood where it needs to go.
I know the difference between the various types of tissue which have been cut through, and how to feed magic into them to hasten the natural healing process. I know how to use mana to pull things together and rebind them. I know how to remove any foreign bodies and neutralise any potential infections. I know how to smooth the surface area so that not even a scar is left.
Almost feeling like I’ve fallen into a dream, I put my knowledge into practice. I’m more of a tailor than a doctor, using delicate threads of magic to make an unbroken whole of a piece of fabric that was sliced through.
When I reemerge from my meditative state, settling back into my body, I find that I’m staring at my arm. My bloody, yet completely uninjured arm. With a suddenly shaking hand, I wipe away the remnants of blood which had covered the wound. Not a scratch can be seen.
I breathe a sigh of relief even as my head starts to throb like a dwarven smith is hammering away inside it. I can still heal.