When I cut open a fellow’s leg and dragged a worm-like parasite out of him, that got the Acropolis Healer's attention regardless, along with most everyone else's.

“Someone verify if this is in the database!” I called out, depositing it into a glass vial and sealing it tight as it squirmed in my TK grip. “What’s your name, soldier?” I asked him with a cruel smile, his own answer pretty forced as his buddies held his limbs.

“Conrad Tellemacher, ma’am!” he replied quickly, staring at the thing that had been inside him.

“If it’s not in the database, it’s to be registered as the Tellemacher Parasite Bloodworm!” I called out, and he had a moment of pleasant delight before he howled in pain as I slapped a Firefrost Dart on his leg and his blood and muscles lit up with hot and cold light. Steam erupted from the long slice I’d made in his leg, but it sealed up completely with little fuss, what blood had leaked out vanishing with it, and even left a hairline of silver there.

Nancy Schmidt took the vial from me, already diving into the database to verify things. There had been an outreach program with the other Littoral Zones, sharing information and tactics of Aquatic attackers, even if they were totally different species. That had then been picked up and hooked into a dozen other regional databases, as well as Hunter Association files, rapidly making information available about Creatures which otherwise might have to be purchased for extreme prices from information specialists who held their data close.

Again, broad, low power in information-sharing, and crowdsourcing the information. Information about powerful creatures was still scant, but it wasn’t what was most desired, anyway. It was the Novices and Adepts who wanted to know what they were fighting and what to expect, while Mages tended to worry about the creatures lesser mages didn’t want to face regardless... and who cared if you had knowledge about a Noble Beast? While interesting to read about, if you faced one, you were most likely dead, so it wasn’t a priority.

Still, the coordination had revealed that there were even more species involved in the Aquatic assaults on the Littoral Zones than expected, as was made obvious by different markings, ornamentation, and slightly different builds and features. Similar species at different Littoral Zones had indeed turned out to be very different...

I immediately scanned the crowd there for more signs of the new parasite, and swore, gesturing and limning a dozen people in silvery Faerie Fire. “All of you, on the Disks!” I ordered. “Volunteers! Hold them down!” I called on, as the people, most of whom had been cleared by the other Healers, swallowed in dismay.

“I have already treated...” the Acropolis Healer began.

“It’s an evolved parasite. It won’t trip your Healing Awareness until it starts having a negative effect on its host, and the entry wound is self-sealed behind it!” I interrupted her blithely, making her twitch at the rebuke. “What combat zones were you all in? Send out a general alarm to everyone who was in those zones! They need to be scanned for the parasites! Most of the entry wounds seem to be on the legs and feet, I need their boots examined to see if they were bored through! Alert the cleaning teams to be aware of these parasites!”

My team of helpers was gathering information quickly, alarms were going out, and this looked like it was going to be a bigger problem.

The earlier bacterial-poison attack had been disseminated and Plant mages had come up with a quick solution to it, the Healers shown what to look for, and the barbed spine delivery system noted and warnings spread.

New attacks like this were hardly uncommon, although two so close together were, and the turnover time for a solution was usually a month or more, which normally meant a lot more people died from them. The importance of Healers detecting what was wrong with people was once more emphasized, the anvil on which warriors were hammered, making them stronger.

“How do you detect the parasite so readily?” the Acropolis Healer asked, standing next to me as my fingers began to move up a young woman’s leg, a humming blade extending out of one finger as I stared intensely right through the Hunter, clearly focused on something.

I did not reply, although I could have. I made a shooing motion with my other hand, faint hot and cold sparks dancing from my fingers, and the miffed Acropolis Healer stepped back very reluctantly, perhaps glancing in Sama’s looming direction as she did so.

“Left arm,” I said softly, my fingers dancing across the patient’s chest and hovering above her heart. “It’s following the main veins, they are the roomiest. I’m not letting it in. Keep the arm straight.” I let the knife go. “Sama,” I inclined my head, and she moved to grasp the woman’s wrist in an iron grip, one finger arching and a Golden talon curving out of it.

Both hands free, I rapidly chased the parasite away from the Hunter’s heart and lungs and down her arm. “Now!” I told Sama calmly.

Flick, grab, dunk. Sama was smoother than any surgeon as she slit open the vein, grabbed the parasite within, and dropped it into a vial.

I slid firefrost energy across the cut, which sealed shut as the woman grit her teeth and made every effort not to scream. I winked at her in admiration, and she grinned despite all the sweat beading on her forehead.

A Cantrip restored the clothing I had to cut through, and I slapped her shoulder as Sama hauled her to her feet.

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“Kirlian Auras,” I finally replied to the Healer, and she blinked. “The parasite has both another Kirlian Aura and its own Water Magic Aura. It uses the latter to attempt to merge into the blood background and avoid a Healing Magic scan, blending in with the body it is inside. It still has its own Kirlian Aura, and if you are sensitive enough, you can detect its existence, even if it tries to match it to its host.

“Next!” I pointed at a dark-skinned fellow, who grimaced at me. “No whining or your new nickname is ‘Not even a girlie-man!’” I informed him grandly. His smile grew even more forced.

“Hole in his right boot,” Duncan reported, holding up the item. “He already told us he was caught in a collapse and waded through water to get out.”

“So they aren’t catching us on dry land. Good to know!” I pointed, as it seemed to be a common thread. “Don’t make it an absolute, but note it and continue with the others!”

I put my hands above the entry wound on his right ankle, started up the firefrost, and ran it quickly up his leg. I closed in on his torso, shifted my other hand to his heart, and held it there as I moved up on the thing. “Ugh, it’s boring into your gut. We’re going to have to shoo it out your ass, lucky you.” I swirled up an illusory privacy screen around, making the Acropolis Healer jump in shock as she was warded out. “You’re going to get the hottest cold enema ever, but no bleeding. No screaming allowed!”

The process was a little embarrassing, but not all that painful, although the firefrost shooting out his arse and frying the sucking parasite in midair definitely made it memorable. His friends promptly tagged him ‘Fireass’ regardless as they helped him back into his clothes and away.

“This is a very unorthodox means of healing,” the Acropolis Healer told me stiffly as I moved to the next man.

“No, it’s a very normal method of healing. It’s just not something used by Healing Magic, which is something completely different. Expelling a parasite is very normal. What do they do at the Acropolis, try to destroy it inside the body, where it can pollute everything?”

She wanted to say something in rejoinder, then chose to just shut up. “I... would like to see how you sense this creature.”

“Judging by how you were Healing the others, your control of your Healing magic is neither subtle nor gentle enough to do so. You’re probably more used to wringing more Healing out of every surge for brute power than harmonizing with your patients; it’s a standard technique for many Healers who work in combat conditions.”

A vein actually popped out on her forehead at being lectured by a younger woman than herself that way about the Acropolis’s greatest area of strength. She was an Adept, not a Mage, which was probably why she was posted here. The Mage-Healers of the Acropolis generally became full Priestesses or Mothers Superior, and were either Branch Heads or posted in Athens itself, meaning she’d likely not be down here treating normal soldiers every day, but resigned to working special cases, and certainly such special cases would come to her... for suitable compensation, of course.

So, she was a Sister or a Priestess of the Acropolis. As the Acropolis taught Healers from all over the world, Sister/Brother was the highest most such interns ever made it to in the Acropolis, often referred to as ‘Lay Brother/Sister’ since they would be leaving soon. Those who chose to stay as part of the Acropolis could rapidly climb in power and influence, especially if they were women, while the men moved into support or guardian duties as Knights or Priests of the Acropolis.

The Acropolis was famous/infamous for being incredibly rigid about being paid for their services. A lot of people did not like that, of course, but the fact was that Healers needed just as many resources to advance as any other type of Mage, and they had a harder time personally acquiring those resources, while any team with a Healer along had a hugely increased chance of surviving combat. While charity work wasn’t impossible, especially in emergencies, the Acropolis expected to be paid by those who could afford to pay, and that included by governments and organizations, if applicable.

The Acropolis had a branch here because this was a Littoral Zone, and the demand for Healing was basically unending as a result, plus new threats from the seas were materializing all the time. The government was definitely paying them for their services, which I assumed was a tidy sum, but they must have seen the recent slowdown in Hunters coming in for extra Healing to their temple-hall, so they’d sent someone out to investigate the how and why of what was going on.

The normal Healers out here were usually Sisters or random Hunters with the Healing Element, and they were under great pressure from the Acropolis not to give away Healing for free, except to those of an organization or group they served with. Free Healing devalued the service for everyone, so my (and Red’s) Healing of so many Boonie Boys and Bonnies was definitely not something they would approve of.

On the other hand, the way most of the people screamed as they were Healed by me meant most of them would definitely find another Healing source if they could help it!

The information-sharing, early detection of, and my accurate assessments of problems was a different matter entirely, as I definitely had no Acropolis training, but I was proving to be at least as adept as one of them!

“I would like to learn how to track and expel such an organism,” she stated calmly, as if it was a given that I would do so.

“It won’t work for Dark Mages,” I told her, and she physically flinched in shock that I had both identified her as one and voiced it aloud. “You can’t chase it out with Healing Magic, and your Curse Magic would only make it anchor itself into its Host and deflect the Dark Magic into him. Unless the patient is a Mage or tougher, they’d likely die before the Bloodworm let go and fled his body.”

The big man waiting for my attention looked back and forth between us, and half a dozen other Healers had also now gathered around him, all but one of them also women. “Uh, I’m not in that much trouble, am I?” he managed to ask bluffly.

I gave him a smile, and he relaxed despite himself. “No, Mister Douglas, you are not. I apologize if you are being treated as an object, but these Healers are very interested in learning how to treat people in your position, so you have graduated from being a person in need of healing to a test subject who will be helping to heal others. You may now grimace and curse at your promotion, congratulations!”

“Yay, me?” he managed to say, rolling his eyes.

“Entry point?” I asked Egbert, who’d triaged this one.

“Back of the left knee. He never felt it, just like the others. You can barely see any discoloration, it was basically glued shut behind the worm.” I tilted Mr. Douglas back on his Disk and lifted his hairy leg, while the other Healers all crowded in to see.

It looked like barely more than a scratch or a popped zit, or the beginnings of a rash. “Good eyes,” I told Egbert, and he smiled as he darted off to the next person. “Mr. Douglas, did you get thrown into water over knee-high at some point?”

“Yeah, got knocked around by a Bluefin squad that took out the building, took a spill. Our Water mage Willard got us out of it before they could swarm us, however.”