Miner's Son (Part 1)

“It just doesn’t make any sense, Conrad,” Idris said, gesturing at the adventurers returning the camp to a sense of normalcy. A small group of them stood idly around Gendra as she alternated between healing and waiting for her mana to refill.

“They’d be done by now if Eana was healing them. She’s got way more mana than Gendra, not to mention she regenerates faster and she’s willing to spend it all to get the job done,” Idris said.

Conrad stood listening to him and smoking a tobacco pipe. He leaned against a fence post and let Idris rant while maintaining his posture of complete relaxation.

“Raises the value of that healing, though,” Conrad said, puffing.

“How do you mean?” Idris replied.

Conrad shook his head slowly and blew out a smoke ring, “One of the first rules of adventuring, and a hard one to learn when you’re getting started, is if somebody wants something done then they’d better be willing to pay. Make it scarce, make em wait, pumps the price. See?”

One of the men had just stood and from his posture he seemed to have had enough waiting. He dug around in his pocket and fished out some coins, to the annoyance of the men who had been waiting before him. Gendra proceeded to heal him.

“Is she doing that on purpose?” Idris asked, surprised.

“Nah, don’t think so. Gendra’s got no real need of money around here. Just handing you a teachable moment,” he said, good naturedly nudging Idris.

Watching the slow process of healing Idris asked, “How much mana does Gendra even have? Twenty five?”

“Twenty,” Conrad corrected, “Earning additional mana is challenging without gemstones or magic items. Spell casting is a rich man’s game. Never have quite understood why your sister is able to do so much of it.”

“She’s got her bracelet,” Idris said.

“Right but there’s more to it than that - she ever tell you how much she has?”

“She says she doesn’t know. Which is weird but sometimes Order doesn’t give us complete insight into everything, right?”

“That is generally true,” Conrad said, puffing on his pipe thoughtfully, “but not about stats.”

“You think she’s lying about it or something?” Idris said.

“It’s possible,” Conrad said, and before Idris could jump in and explain she would never do something like that he continued, “But not in a malicious way. It’s prudent in our circles, adventurers I mean, to keep exact numbers a secret from each other. Hierarchies are always forming among men and part of maintaining your position is keeping the other guy from knowing exactly where he’d stand if it came down to a fight. Maybe your sister is just wise to the game.”

Would have been nice to know that one before he told literally everybody who would listen every time he got a new point in his strength stat, but Idris supposed it made sense.

They watched the work in silence for a while before Idris opened up another topic that had been stuck in the back of his mind.

“Healers are rare. We’ve got two who live here but not a single other one has come in with all of the adventurers,” Idris said, “Pretty lucky right?”

Conrad scowled and Idris wondered if he knew what he was about to ask, “That is true.” he said simply.

“Last night I would have been killed if it wasn’t for Eana. A couple of the imps were no problem, but when they came at me in a large group or hit me when I was focused on another of them… Eana was there. She wasn’t all that strong in the fight but she killed a couple of them. And really, she saved both our lives,” Idris said.

“That’s part of the reason we form bands,” Conrad said, “Lets us specialize and fill in gaps where alone we would be weaker.”

“That’s exactly it,” Idris continued, “Out in the woods, even with another Warrior as strong as me we might have died anyway. It was her healing that got us both out of there.”

Conrad dumped out his pipe and sighed out a final cloud of smoke then turned to face Idris fully, “Go ahead then, ask it.”

Idris had lined up another series of explanations for Eana being useful that he planned to go through before getting to the point but, since Conrad was asking, he went ahead and just came out with it, “Why don’t you want to recruit Eana? I know she’s young and not as strong as me, and you’ve said a hundred times you can make a great adventurer of me but she’s a Healer, Conrad. Her magic - ”

“I know what Healer’s do and how valuable they are, Idris,” Conrad cut in, his voice serious, “I’m not the leader of the Seekers because I’m handsome. I mean for my band to be on top, and we look fancy and mighty here running this small dungeon, but when you see the talent in Confluence you’re going to understand just as I do that we have a long way to climb.”

Idris started in again, “Then why not-”

“She’s your sister,” Conrad said, “So I’ve avoided this subject. But if you want to push it I won’t lie to you. Can you put aside the fact that you’re her brother for this conversation and hear what I have to say? As a fellow adventurer.”

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He paused and seemed to genuinely mean the question.

“Yeah,” Idris said, “I can do that.”

“I’m going to hold you to that. If you’re going to be part of my band, there has to be trust between us. Understand? So here it is.”

He continued and something about the way he spoke felt as if he knew this conversation would come some day and he had been preparing for it longer than Idris had even considered it an issue, “Tell me true, Idris, what do you feel when your sister heals you? When she casts any spell?”

“What do you mean?” Idris said, uncomfortable with the intensity of Conrad’s look, “I feel what everybody feels. Relief. Less pain.”

“Uh huh, and what else?”

“I.. I guess I feel… I don’t know,” Idris finished lamely.

Conrad stood straight, all semblance of relaxation abandoned, “A lie. Poor way to begin building trust between us. You’ve probably been healed more by your sister than any other person in this town so I won’t let you slink out of this conversation with a coward’s ‘I don’t know’. You know it. Now say it.”

Idris thought back through all the damage he had taken in the last few days. And even before that. He didn’t enjoy admitting it but there was something else there - a discomfort. Even when Eana healed mundane injuries from a normal day in the mines he had a sense of being annoyed at her.

But he was her brother. If he felt some way about her doing something nice for him, that was just something he needed to endure. He always told himself he had had a long day, or he was hungry or he was exceptionally tired or… something he could take responsibility for. But he had long since dismissed the idea she was doing it wrong. You didn’t do skills or spells wrong - you invoked them and they worked.

Besides, the feeling always vanished as quickly as it had come anyway so he thought nothing more of it. That was just how it was.

But he didn’t want to lie to Conrad.

“I feel annoyed. Frustrated. Sometimes even angry,” Idris said, adding quickly, “But not at her!”

Conrad nodded once, “If you mean it that it’s not at her, then you’re a better man than I. I know I shouldn’t feel it at her, but I do.

“I also know I shouldn’t be feeling it at all. It’s unnatural. Alien. She’s a twelve year old girl with an incredible ability and I know I should feel all the things you lied and said you feel. And Idris, that’s why so many of us seem so confused and avoid her. Everything rational tells us things are OK but the feeling that comes when she heals is the exact opposite.”

Cold dread crept over Idris as he listened to Conrad put words to the things he knew all along but he realized now had been unwilling to look at.

“I feel sometimes, Idris, like I could take her neck and just-” Conrad squeezed his fist and Idris could hear the creaking of his leather gloves, “So what do you do when you get an inexplicable urge to kill somebody you know you absolutely shouldn’t? You avoid her. You keep away when she’s around.”

“But you were willing to train her,” Idris said.

“Something I was willing to put up with so I could train you. The offer wasn’t for her but when you came to me with her in tow what was I supposed to do? We couldn’t talk about this, Idris, not then.”

Idris tried to find some example, some situation where people preferred Eana’s healing to Gendra’s. Some real world place where his sister wasn’t treated the way Conrad was describing.

“What about Breakthrough? They called Eana out to heal them when Galvar was hurt too bad to move,” he said.

Conrad just shook his head, “I heard them talk about it at the inn. They sent Ken for Gendra. But it was Eana who ended up coming out. But what’s more, that whole situation nearly got them all killed, including your sister. Ken, the poor bastard, survived that just to get killed here, the place he should have been completely safe, the literal Node of Order protected camp!”

Idris just listened. There was nothing to say. It all made sense.

“And then there’s Tomme,” Conrad continued, “The one person who isn’t confused at all about how he feels about Eana. Tomme knows exactly what he feels when your sister uses magic. And I don’t know whether to like the man better or hate him for it but he has none of the hang ups the rest of us do about naming her as the cause of it.”

“He definitely wasn’t confused when he tried to get her killed,” Idris said, sullenly.

“He’s dangerous. You learned that well enough. All the more reason to keep your sister out of all this,” he said, gesturing broadly to the camp, Irondale and, Idris figured, everything, “It’ll keep her safer than trying to force people to do with it what you somehow manage to. I don’t know if you’re special or if it’s just the brother you are to her, but the rest of us can’t be so magnanimous. Especially after last night.”

“You mean you think she really was responsible for letting the imps in?” Idris scoffed.

“You mean you don’t?” Conrad shot back.

Idris paused. He had to be just as responsible as she was for the whole thing. He had led them off into the Chaos Lands. He had run after the imp who stole her staff. He had carried her across the barrier of the node. She hadn’t been doing anything but following him.

Conrad continued, “Adventurers go in and out of the node every single day. Last night the two of you came in with monsters coming after you. You're not the first people in history to run to a Node of Order for safety, but at least to my reckoning, you are the first to bring the monsters in with you.”

Idris was dumbfounded. He didn’t know how the imps had followed them through the barrier but the idea that even Conrad would be shocked by it was something he wouldn’t have thought was possible.

There was that final moment though. She was hurt bad when Idris finally crossed the barrier. They both had run their mana pools dry, but her regeneration was so much faster than his. She had managed to get one more healing off as they entered. It was why he set her down to walk on her own.

Could that be it? But why now? Why not all the countless times she had used magic in the node before?

Idris must have been quiet a long time because Conrad went ahead and kept on, “So when I look at the situation I have two people to look at. And only one of them seems to be a magnet for Chaos.”

Idris didn’t know what to say. It made so much sense and yet he didn’t want to believe any of it.

What if everything the townspeople, the adventurers, and even Conrad feared about Eana was actually true?