The term “healer” might have been unknown to Nym and Shadi, but of course they understood what it meant. What followed was a barrage of questions from Nym about what exactly Shadi’s Calling would let her do, and I let this discussion take its course, because hearing a direct comparison was interesting. Initially I wondered whether doctors would even have a place in a world where healers existed, but it seemed like they were anything but miracle workers.

“What about medicine? Do you know how to brew any?” Nym asked.

“No, I don’t,” Shadi responded, shaking her head.

The answer was the same for any questions related to mending broken bones, surgery, treating patients long-term, and basically anything that required manual work, which was the main job of the doctors at the temple. Shadi had more theoretical knowledge about the human body than most people, but she didn’t know anything practical. This did not mean that her Calling was useless either, however. As a magic user, she apparently specialized in manipulating mana, which could have wondrous effects.

The way she described the script she had attacked us with, it sounded like it would issue a hard-reset of the entire body, and after further inquiries, this could apparently function like a defibrillator, among other things. She could supposedly also heal wounds by stimulating someone’s mana and increasing their self-healing capabilities.

“So if I were to cut myself, you could heal it immediately? And could you do it handcuffed like this?” I asked.

Shadi nodded.

“I definitely need to see that,” I said and reached into my pocket, fishing for Tomar’s trusty pocket knife.

‘I don’t know how I feel about that.’

Everyone else seemed a little taken aback, seeing me put the knife to my hand. Shadi stared at me slack-jawed, while Nym tried to talk me out of it.

“Tomar, wait, I can’t condone you hurting yourself like that, please at least—”

Slice.

Ignoring her, I made a large cut across the lower part of my right palm. Being right-handed, we rarely used that location for scripting, so it wouldn’t matter if something went wrong and it had to heal the normal way. Though the cut was admittedly a little deeper than intended.

“Ah, shit. Uhm...” I stammered, as blood fell onto the bed sheets.

I took a step back, so it would at least only dirty the floor. The pain was one thing, but I hadn’t expected there to be quite this much blood, and it kept flowing and flowing.

“Why is there so much?” Nym exclaimed, quickly stepping away to get a towel, which she then pressed on my hand.

“It’s not just me then?” I asked. “That’s more than there should be.”

“With your mana it’s almost a surprise it didn’t spray out like a fountain,” Shadi said calmly. “Come over here.”

Thinking about it, this was the first time we had bled since we got mana. Approaching her, I removed the towel and continued to make a mess of the floor, until I crouched down slightly and held my hand under hers, a script appearing in between them.

There was a bit of risk involved in letting her do this, but I had a strong feeling it would be okay. She seemed smart, and trying something at this moment would be anything but. Not to mention that she was still shackled, and I would’ve also recognized the previous script she used.

Just a few seconds passed until the blood flow stopped, and when I wiped the remaining blood away, my hand was as good as new.

“Wow...”

I stood up and showed the result to Berla, sitting on the next bed, when Nym forcefully turned me around and took my hand to examine it.

“No residual damage... Not even a cicatrix... Please tell me she’s going to work here,” Nym said, looking at me determinedly. “I mean, where else would she work, right?”

That’s... a good question, I thought, contemplating it for a moment.

Traditionally, a healer would be out in the field, where the action happens. You would want them nearby, to heal people as soon as possible, and to save lives that might otherwise be lost if people would’ve had to be brought back into town first. That being said, we didn’t currently have any issues with beasts, neither inside nor outside of town.

“That would make the most sense I suppose,” I said.

Nym’s eyes sparkled, as her head snapped in Shadi’s direction. “What else?” she asked.

It became obvious that healers and doctors would be able to complement each other very well. The latter wouldn’t actually be able to do much about a cut, aside from closing it up one way or another and waiting for it to heal, but this was not an issue for a healer. On the other hand, this would apparently not be nearly as effective with broken bones, which would still need a lot of care. Shadi also couldn’t heal or even help with a cough, but she did speak of illnesses she could have positive effects on.

Given this information, I already assumed that even magic doctors wouldn’t be able to solve one problem I had hoped to find a solution to one day. When I asked about Berla’s missing leg, I was sadly told that there was nothing that could be done anymore. Had Shadi been there when it happened, it would’ve been possible to reattach the leg and heal anything but the bones perfectly right away, but she couldn’t regrow limbs, and healing a rotten leg that laid somewhere out in the Wildlands was beyond her capabilities as well.

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It wasn’t long after when the door to the hallway opened and Bren stepped in. “Hati is here, should I send him in?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Uhm... Riala is also here,” he said somewhat dejectedly.

He looked like he had at least tried to only bring Hati, given that that had been my order, but I naturally didn’t expect Riala to stay back if she heard that something happened at the temple. His expressions over being unable to reel in the little girl were always funny to me, however.

“That’s fine,” I said, nodding in understanding.

He stepped back and made way for the large wolf to take his place in the door frame, sticking his head inside the room. “What’s up?” Hati asked happily.

“The b-b-beast...” Shadi started stammering, and for the first time, she moved her arms and legs, seemingly in an attempt to get away from the perceived monster. The rattling of the handcuffs increased in intensity when Hati’s gaze fell on her.

Uh oh... Please tell me they heard about the friendly beast in our midst at the Raising Site.

“Shadi, please don’t worry. This is Hati, he’s nice,” I said.

“Hello!” he said.

She didn’t seem to hear me, so I stepped in between them to break her line of sight, and kept talking while looking her straight in the eyes.

“Nothing is going to happen to you, I promise.”

Shadi looked up at me in fear. She apparently didn’t know his name, or she would’ve known who I had called for. She said “the beast” though, so she probably knew about him being in town. But seeing him up close was evidently a bit much. She would have to bear this, however, since I needed his senses.

I waved Hati inside, gesturing for him to walk past us, to create some room between them. As he finally stepped inside, Riala came into view as well, pressed against his back to fit under the door frame.

“Finally! I couldn’t see anything!” she said.

Unsurprisingly, this elicited a sudden shift in Shadi’s expression, from fear to utter confusion.

“What...” she whispered, her head following the two.

I walked after them to explain why I had sent Bren to get Hati. Though there was another question on my mind.

“Is your sister very mad?”

“She told me to be home for dinner,” Riala pouted. “But I’m free until then!”

“Alright,” I chuckled and continued in a hushed voice. “I’ll explain everything later, but I need to know one thing, Hati. The girl on the bed, is there anything unusual about her?”

Leaning to the side to look past me, he glanced at Shadi. “She has a lot of mana!” he said excitedly. “Oh, but you know that already... Hm.”

“Wait, what do you mean by a lot? The aura I see is pretty weak.”

“You still don’t feel it?” he said, scrunching his nose.

“She’s regulating it, like Aelene, right?” Riala said.

“That’s right,” he responded.

She looked down at me with a smug grin.

“Yea, yea, you two are amazing. Okay, so she has a lot of mana at her disposal. Anything else?”

“She looks like another Sourcerer to me,” he said.

“Right. What about her mental state? Does she feel anything like me? Is there more than one soul inside her?”

“No, I don’t think so. You felt peculiar even before your mana changed. She is like the others.”

“Yup! Totally like the others!” Riala added.

“Don’t just parrot what he says, Ria. It’s great that you can feel these things to a degree, but you need to give your own opinion.”

“Okay...” she said. Her face contorted, seemingly deep in thought to gleam something of use. “She feels mean.”

““Huh?”” Hati and I said in unison, and turned towards Shadi, who was still staring at us as well.

“Do you feel that way too, Hati?” I asked.

“No. I think she looks nice.”

“She totally feels mean!”

I didn’t know what Riala was seeing, but I had gotten the confirmation that she was probably the only one inside her mind. Assuming that she might not have been at first, the merge might have finished. This would also explain why she was so much more cooperative now.

“Alright, let’s put the question of whether she’s nice or mean aside for now. She has a lot of mana and she’s not a Split One. That’s a good start. Do you think she’s dangerous?”

“No,” Hati said.

“Yes!” Riala said simultaneously.

“Really?” I asked with a sigh.

Neither me nor Hati could see it, and I would trust him over Riala here.

“Okay then, I got what I needed. Thank you. Could you step back out? I think this will be easier if she isn’t scared. Maybe wait in the office or something.”

“Understood,” Riala said while saluting, mimicking Bren.

“Good one. Now go.”

Hati started moving and slowly walked past the fearful girl that was still tied to the bed, though she relaxed slightly after he was gone and the door closed.

“What do you think?” I whispered, standing a few meters away from her.

‘I’m with Hati. If she isn’t attacking anyone, she seems nice. And she hasn’t done anything suspicious since she started talking normally.’

“Yea. Talk a bit more and then let her go? Under secret supervision, of course.”

‘Sounds good. We can hardly blame her for attacking us if that was just another soul messing with her mind.’

Walking back to the others, the conversation about what Shadi could do and what her actual job might become kept going on, with us slowly growing to trust her enough to free her from the shackles. We also briefly broached the topic of Omega, but while she could read and understand it, she apparently didn’t know any actual scripts, and I also didn’t want to go too in depth with Nym present. We could leave that for later. Once we were done, she would be allowed to leave with her friends, as that was the norm for all candidates.

The one worry I had was what she would do with these powers. We couldn’t lock her away for being a Sourcerer, just because she could do others harm. It was the same with Fighters and Charmers after all. And Tomar was right that she probably wasn’t to blame for what happened. What if she went out, modified a water source script, and laid waste to the town though? I had looked forward to finding a magic user, but hadn’t actually expected it to happen so soon. It was unfortunate that we weren’t prepared for this eventuality at all.