“Damn, that’s a rough story.” said a the tiny fairy, sipping from a glass of whiskey half the size she was.
Persy jumped in surprise, then caught herself. “Creampuff? What are you doing here? Have you been listening this whole time?” She noticed the bottle sitting beside the tiny being. “Where did you get the whiskey?”
“You know who I am, my mistress sent me to find your master, yes, and I stole it from his office when I saw that he was asleep on the couch.” Creampuff took another sip.
“Oh,” said Persy, silently standing there for a few seconds. “You aren’t going to tell her, are you?”
“Of course I am. She loves a good story.” Persy looked sad at that. “Oh, you’re worried because you are from Ridalia, instead of a hereditary slave like the Cow? If anything that will make her like you more. She was born into it. You were kidnapped and forced into it.”
“Why would that matter?” Persy asked, confused.
“Because, Ferin is at peace with Ridalia, border raids aside. I’ve even heard that they were in talks for a trade agreement and ceasefire. My mistress wouldn’t want me to say why, but lets just say that the rebellion isn’t the only threat to this country. If you and your grandfather are citizens, even ones that have been away for a while, a peace treaty may mean that you need to be set free. For that matter, the country may have to find all of the slaves like you and free them. You’ll be banished back to Ridalia, so you don’t violate the law, but but if it secures a ceasefire, it will be worth it.”
“So, she doesn’t want to have to do the paperwork?”
“Does anyone like doing paperwork? Well, other than Reginald. He’s weird. But no, she wants what’s best for the people, regardless of which country they are from. And a lasting peace is what’s best.” The fairy flew up and picked up the half empty bottle. “Well, I’m going to wake the boss up and go home. My mistress will get mad if I don’t get him home.” With that, Creampuff flew back to the office, leaving the two beast women alone.
They had finished cleaning the floor as Persy told her story, so Cena decided to start supper. She asked Persy if she wanted to stay, but Persy had things to do at the palace, and turned her down. The other employees had already left. With the boss asleep from the day’s exhaustion when the day ended, they left and would collect their pay tomorrow morning.
Cam came out of the office with Creampuff on his shoulder, and Persy grabbed her stuff and followed them home.
Two days later Persy came to his office during a lull in customers. “Cam? I want to ask you something. Can I go with Grandfather when he leaves?”
Cam looked at her and tilted his head. “Are you sure? Legally I’d have to make the Caravan master your manager for the trip, and I don’t know how well he would treat you. You may want to ask your Grandfather how he treats female Beast folk, just to make sure you won’t be forced to service the men.”
“Sure, I can ask.” She hadn’t thought about that, as she’d gotten used to the way Cam treated her, but most caravans only brought women with them as workers or harlots. She was certain she wouldn’t be beaten, as the master seemed to treat Grandfather well, but Grandfather was a man. “I just want to spend time with him. I haven’t seen him in years. You can tell them that I am there to work as a healer in case they are attacked again, and to watch over your goods.”
“I don’t mind you going. I just want to make sure you’ll be safe. Kanta is pretty good, so I can have him take over the Slave area.”
“Assuming he keeps his hands off of the female patients.”
“He’s been pretty good about that recently. I think Cena’s been pulling his attention.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that.” said Persy, giggling. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t start making offers to buy her.”
“Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” Asked Cam, then realized what he said. “I meant that figuratively. She’s already interested in him, so he wouldn’t gain much by buying her. That said, if she wants him to buy her, and she’ll still work in the shop, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’m sure he’d treat her well.”
“He’d probably spoil her.” Persy said. “Anyway, I’ll get back to work. Grandfather should come by this afternoon after they have all of the goods ready for shipping out tomorrow, so I’ll ask him. Assuming he thinks its safe, I’ll arrange for his master to come by tomorrow morning for the transfer.”
Cam nodded and she returned to her area.
The next morning Cam, Marya, and Samantha said goodbye to Persy, dressed in her full adventurer’s gear, as the wagon pulled away. The workshop was the last place they had loaded goods for the caravan. Samantha had checked her father’s caravan over with all the care she could, and given the wagons clearance to go. Cam had given Persy a book to read during her journey, the army combat mage training manual. Now that their preparations were complete the caravan headed East, into the Free People’s Land, what the goblin rebellion called their territory. The rebels had been freeing hereditary slaves anywhere they go, even freeing a few criminal slaves. Their forces, however, had managed to take all of the area it could, and were now spending all of their resources trying to hold that territory.
After the Caravan left, Cam returned to the clinic. He had already assigned Kanta to cover the Slave and Livestock section, so he could get back to his studies and his few customers.
A month later, Cam finished drawing the magic circle on the page of his notebook, looked at it and smiled. He had easily passed his Merchant certification at the end of last month, but was struggling to learn to use magic circles he needed for the summoning Samantha was teaching him. In all the other fields of magic he had studied magic circles were optional. They gave form to the magic so that unskilled people could cast the spells, and gave you a feel for the magic so that you would have a concept and mental image necessary to cast it without the circle. But Summoning magic needed circles for the same reason contract magic did; the concept involved was just too complicated. While contracts required that every agreement and retribution be encoded, summoning circles required designated areas, targets, and criteria for the object or creature, including whitelists and blacklists for properties. Finally, however, Cam had managed a simple summoning circle. Range, about a kilometer. Target, plants. No criteria, whitelists or blacklists. Those could be added later if he succeeded. Maybe he could manage this without the circle, but for now he would use it.
He laid the paper on the desk and started feeding it energy. After ten seconds something appeared and he stopped sending in energy. It was a dandelion, roots and all. Probably came from a sidewalk crack outside. If someone was growing it for its minor nutritional or medicinal properties it would have been owned, and one of the first rules of summoning was that it was much harder to summon an owned object, and it got harder the closer the person was connected to the object. The reason was complicated, but basically it came down to a person subconsciously transferring some of their mana into an object when they claimed it as their own. This tied it to their mana signature, so in a way the object became a part of them. And the closer they were to the object, the more mana the object contained and the more a part of the person is was.
He took the medicinal and nutritional parts off of the dandelion and threw the rest away. The good parts he sat in a drying rack in the warehouse and left them there. In a few days they would be ready to be turned into salves or to have their essences extracted. Cam hadn’t used such ingredients since he was a child, so he’d let Kanta have them. The important part was that he had succeeded.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Now to alter the circle. ‘Instead of plants, lets limit it to a specific part, maybe nuts.’ He thought. He activated it and a partially sprouted acorn appeared. Well, it was technically edible, but lets limit it to just edible nuts. He flipped through the chart for common filters, found the symbol, and added it to the whitelist. Now every nut it summoned must be edible. He tried it again and got another acorn. Cam was a bit annoyed. Yes, they were technically edible if you soaked them and removed the tannins, but they weren’t edible as is. He rechecked the symbol, fixed a few minor errors that let things that were once edible or could be made edible slip through, and tried it again. A single wheat grain appeared. Better. The difference between a nut and a grain was fairly small.
He worked on it for a few more minutes before he heard the door ding and went out to the front of the store. A sweaty man in dirty clothes stood there panting. “Emergency message, sir. Bandits hit the caravan. The Rebels captured several of our people, including your slave, and stole our cargo.”
Cam poured the man some ice water from a nearby pitcher. “Breathe. Have a drink. Now, do you know where they took them?”
The man quickly drank the water, then shook his head. “Probably one of their settlements. The three slaves will probably be set free, but I don’t know what they’ll do with the others. Please sir, you need to help us.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I gave him two silvers. “Here. Go get a room, some sleep, and some rest. I’ll get everything ready tonight, and you can lead us back to where they were taken tomorrow.”
“Do...Do I have to sir? Last time a minotaur attacked. I barely escaped.”
“If you give me the information, I can leave you here.” I got a map of the area, and the man showed me where they were attacked, marked the nearest village, and showed me where our troops were located, as I would have to convince them to let me pass through the line. The Merchant had shown that he was working for a noble, and as I was a noble they would probably let me through, but that might not be enough as someone was recently attacked.
I thanked him, gave him an extra silver and wrote him a letter for the inn, saying that I would cover his room and board fees until I returned. He had some savings, but he would need to wait here until I returned so that he could rejoin whatever I could salvage from the caravan.
I told my family my plan. I had gotten the Shrine of Keshan, the god of health, son of Aranya, goddess of Fertility, to stamp my Healer’s Guild card and mark me as an official healer of the church. Those with that mark had a duty to heal everyone, regardless of who they were, and were famous for going into war zones to heal people on both sides. As I wasn’t a priest, nor did I have the god’s favor, I would be the lowest rank of healer, a hireling, but that would allow me to pass through the lines to visit the goblin camps, and even the goblins would respect me enough to let me pass through freely as long as I treated their people as well. They even gave me a Sunflower patch to put on my clothes, the sunflower being His symbol.
When I told Samantha about this, she demanded that I take her with me. She argued that, as she was in charge of overseeing the merchandise, it was her responsibility to try and get the people and merchandise back. I explained that I couldn’t take her with me to the goblin villages, as she would likely start a fight if she found the merchandise, and she agreed to stay at the front and help them fight against any aggressive expansion by the Goblins.
The next morning, I bought a backpack and filled it with my alchemy kit, all of the medicine we had in stock, and several new books from the various guilds. I got a copy of the manuals for the Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced healers, Merchants, Adventurers, Combat healers, and Apothecaries. I tried to avoid any manuals that could be used for combat, which is why I got the manual for Apothecaries instead of Alchemists. While a skilled Apothecary could make poisons from plants within their territory, Alchemists could use plants from their territory to extract essences of poison and fire, which could be used to cause much more damage. The Adventurers guild mostly taught survival skills and about common plants, animals, monsters, and fungi that were useful or in demand. These manuals could be used to barter for the return of our people and things, and wouldn’t be a risk to any of our troops.
I bought a wagon and horse to pull it, as well as some basic camping gear for two people. As I was heading out there anyway, I decided to load the wagon with food to sell it to the troops at the front or the villages I was going to. It would take less than a day to get to the Front, so I wouldn’t need the camping gear before getting there, but I couldn’t be sure that the rebels, I mean “Free People’s Land” would let me stay in their villages, or would even have rooms available at the inn.
The next morning we set off. Samantha and I talked or read while the traveling, switching who was driving every few hours, stopped to cook something around mid-day, and made it to the military front in the late afternoon. When we were stopped by a lieutenant upon approaching the base, we introduced ourselves to the officer and told them that I was there to provide medical treatment and Samantha was there to help defend the border.
We were introduced to the Captain and I was asked to help treat the men in the infirmary, while Samantha was escorted to the quartermaster’s tent to negotiate for the supplies we brought with us. The infirmary had several dozen men and a few women laying in it. Most were patched up well enough by the doctor that was stationed here, but he was only a Basic level healer, so he didn’t know all of the tricks. I offered him the Intermediate Healer’s Manual, on the grounds that he give it back tomorrow morning before I left. “Why do you need the book when you already know everything in it?” he asked.
“I bought it new to trade with the Free People.” I said. “They kidnapped a few traders I’m associated with a few days ago, so I’m going to try and negotiate for their release. I didn’t know if they would be willing to accept coin, as few traders come through the territory, and I didn’t want to provide them with anything that could help them train or equip their troops, so I brought manuals. Them learning to treat their own injured and sick people doesn’t hurt us, and puts less stress on the doctors on both sides.”
“You’d think so, but in my experience, those in charge base their decisions on if there are enough bodies to throw at the enemy. Them being able to help their people might actually make them fight harder and field more troops.”
I nodded and looked over the wounds of the patients. Most of the cases were either disease of infection, though one man was here because he lost his arm yesterday in a skirmish and is still unconscious from the blood loss. “Unfortunately, I don’t know the spell to regrow missing body parts yet, but I might know how to help with blood loss.” I pulled out the Advanced Manual I was skimming through on my way here, and found the spell I remembered. There was a “Blood Regeneration” spell that sent energy into the bone marrow to make it produce more red blood cells. It was pretty complicated and slow, but I was sure I could do it. I went over to the man, focused on the image of his bone marrow making more blood cells, and started channeling mana into it. Thirty minutes later, I was getting light headed, so I stopped. I only managed to restore half of what he needed to wake up. I had to find a better way to do this.
I went outside to rest for a few minutes and think about a solution, and saw Samantha walking towards me. Actually, she might be able to help with this. When she got to the medical tent I stood up. “Just the woman I was hoping to see.”
“So you want to go ‘rest’ too?” she asked with a wink, but I shook my head. “Maybe after supper. For now, I want to see how much you learned about healing magic.”
She looked disappointed. “Well, I might be able to handle a basic healing spell, if you want.” she said, shrugging. “Do you need that much help?”
“Actually, I was specifically referring to healing magic’s versions of magic circles. I want you to draw a magic circle for me, and feed it mana.” I showed her the diagram in the manual. “You’re much better with magic circles than me, so I want you to copy this onto a wooden panel, maybe half a meter to the side, so that we can just feed it mana. I can cast the spell, but my efficiency isn’t the best.”
She stared at me for a few seconds. “Fine, I’ll help you. We went inside, grabbed the top of a crate that was almost empty, and she got to work filling the cracks and gaps between boards with clay. If they remained, they would act as defects in the circle either preventing it from working or lowering its efficiency. After all of the gaps were filled, she used a utility spell meant to dry clothes or yourself after getting rained on to dry the clay. You wouldn’t want to use it for making pottery, as the clay would dry too quickly and develop small fractures, but for a test magic circle it was good enough.
While I spent my time draining infected wounds and cleaning them with a Disinfection spell, as the wounds were already closed, Samantha drew the magic circle in special chalk she always kept with her that was made by compacting chalk powder with a mithril based salt to greatly improve its mana conductivity. After ten minutes of work and double and triple checking her work, she fed a bit of mana into it and the circle glowed slightly.
“Well, it’s ready, if you want to try it.” The doctor and a nurse lifted the unconscious man and Samantha slid the board under him. Then she fed the circle mana and he started gaining red blood cells at more than three times the rate he gained them during his treatment. When he woke up a little over nine minutes later, Samantha nodded. “Seems like it works. I’ll need to make you a more permanent version if you are going to keep it around as a magical tool to deal with blood loss. If you’re going to do that, though, I might as well make you ones for Healing, Kill Bacteria, Kill Virus, and Disinfect too while I’m at it. That way any mage on the base can help you.”
Seeing that this was going to take more time then I would have here, as I was planning on leaving tomorrow morning, I gave her all of the healer’s manuals to copy the circles from onto paper, so that she wouldn’t need the books. The doctor could do the same tonight if he wanted, and I would just pick up the books before heading out tomorrow.
“They really should keep these around as reference materials,” I said, as I copied the spell circle for an Automatic Bonesetting spell from the Advanced manual after finishing with the treatment of the men. I had a pretty bad headache, and was really tired from channeling so much mana, but I could still help. The ‘pencil’ I was writing with was actually a mixture of clay, charcoal, and copper power I got by completely filing down a copper coin with a file I borrowed from the base’s Smith. It was technically illegal to deface the money supply, but as I wasn’t doing it for counterfeiting, it was only one copper, and I was a noble, I doubted I’d even hear a complaint about it. I had rolled it into coils within loose woven cloth left over from some bandages, and used the spell to dry it. What resulted was a passable magic pencil, despite the fact that copper had terrible mana conductivity compared to mithril.
“You know the military. Never spend a copper you don’t have to, even if it could save lives or win the war.” replied the doctor. Obviously, he’d been dealing with how certain stingy nobles could be with their military finances. I’m sure father wasn’t like that, though.
After I finished with the circle, I took a bone from the leg of a chicken from the kitchen, broke the bone, and laid it on the circle before feeding it mana. The bone started to mend for a few seconds before cracks started to form on it and I had to stop. Not sure if it was a lack of materials or a flaw in my circle, I sprinkled some bone meal I made by grinding up some of the smaller bones with a mortar and pestle onto the paper and tried again. This time the cracks healed completely, but the bone was slightly weaker than before I started. I added more bone meal and fed the circle more mana, and this time the bone returned to normal.
“Ok, I finished the auto bonesetting circle.” I said, handing it to the doctor. He had finished copying the blood production circle to another page, so he could keep a reference for all of the needed magic circles here. I set a bowl on the page, added a bit of water, the chicken bone from earlier as it was uncooked, and a nutrient potion that I had brought with me. He fed the circle mana and over the next minute the liquid in the bowl turned into thick chicken blood.