A pink haired healer in a white robe announced their presence from behind the curtain. Maeve called them in and rose to her feet to make herself available for examination.

“Someone was in need of basic healing? I hope you don’t mind if they sent a novice to raise skill ranks. [Healing] magic does not rank up unless it is actually used on a variety of wounds.”

“Not at all.” Maeve shook her head.

Soleil on the other hand stared at the healer wide eyed. She was already taking notes. “I was actually hoping to learn the [Heal] skill while I was here. Can you talk me through it?”

“Oh!” The healer exclaimed. They stepped closer to Maeve and began to count over a dozen bruises she gained over the course of the day. “I can do you one better. We can split the experience. Wounds like these aren’t worth much for me at Rank 2. But if you have no experience in the skill, there is more than enough to gain your first rank.”

“Are you sure?” Soleil asked. There would be plenty of opportunities for her to gain experience while fulfilling requests.

The healer nodded in agreement. “There is no shortage of opportunities for me to gain experience, but training new healers is always a big priority for us. Lives are more important than experience anyway. I will be content knowing there is another party out there with their own healer on hand.”

The healer excused themselves to return with a well worn copy of a skill book for the [Heal] skill. It only took Soleil a few minutes to leaf through it long enough to get the basic gist. She was already familiar with the concept that living entities were surrounded by life mana at all times. The [Heal] skill just fed the mana enough Focus or Intensity in order to direct them to heal wounds and restore Vitality.

Soleil gained knowledge of a new skill. [Heal.]

Soleil rose to her feet, pouring a few points of Intensity into [Heal.] The life mana around her coalesced into three motes of white light. She willed them to move in Maeve’s direction and each one caused a single bruise to fade.

Suddenly Soleil was in another location entirely. She did not recognize her own hand, but she rapidly closed the distance and reached out to embrace a lover.

Vitality could be used to mitigate wounds, but if one’s mana reserves were at full, excess Vitality would accelerate natural healing. [Heal] and [First Aid] merely fed the target more Vitality and cured a number of ailments.

If someone was beyond saving, the most the skills could do was ease their passing.

Soleil soon found herself back in the House of Healing with tears streaming down her face.

[Soleil’s Soul gained a level.]

Soleil gained a deeper understanding of [Heal.] The skill can now be raised to Rank 1.

The pink haired healer was giving her a sympathetic look before quietly mumbling something about excusing themselves.

Soleil needed a few moments to clear her eyes and regain her bearings, only to find that Maeve’s cheeks were just as red. Soleil quickly retrieved her hand. “Um. You all didn’t hear me say anything embarrassing just then. Did you?”

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Aster suppressed a laugh. “Are you sure you want the answer to that?”

Maeve almost looked like she wanted to flee the room.

Soleil swallowed. “Um. Sorry about that. I wasn't quite here, or myself.”

Maeve tugged at the collar of her shirt. “I’m kinda new to mana sharing memories with me too.”

Aster loudly sipped from her water. “The poor healer really should have asked if you two were involved before letting you heal one another.”

“Yeah.” Soleil and Maeve both said at once.

The curtain to the room pulled back as a girl in a green dress stepped into the room with a large stack of papers. “Oh! Am I interrupting something?”

“No.”

“Nope!”

“Probably not.”

“Well in that case, hello there. You can call me Lillian or Lily. I am the local handler. If any of you are Guild registered, can I have your names and tokens?”

Aster slid a trio of wooden tokens across the table. Each was decorated with a number of designs that Soleil did not recognize. “Hey Lils. I have the tokens of Fia and Metis here. Like usual.”

“Thank you Aster.” Lily turned to face Maeve and Soleil, who had taken their seats across from each other at the table.

“I’m Soleil. Daughter of Veilura if that matters.”

“Knight Outrider and Guardian Maeve.”

“Excellent!” Lillian said. “I did not think I recognized either of you. Are neither of you registered with the guild already?”

Both of them again answered in the negative.

“That’s perfectly alright! I’ll be back with some registration papers. If you like, I can leave these requests here for you to look at. If there’s five of you here to take on a request as a party, you can likely ignore the top third of these. Those are more meant for individuals still getting their bearings and an open request to acquire helping hands for all the work that needs doing.”

“We’re actually both kinda new to this.” Soleil said with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Yeah Lils, might be worth giving them the full run down.” Aster suggested.

“Hmmm. We’re a little busy today, but I can probably make the time. Go ahead and pick out one request that interests each of you. Don’t overthink it. I’ll go over each of them with you in detail after I return.” She set the stack on the table and did a little curtsy before withdrawing from the room.

Soleil began to sift through the stack. The top really was all about picking a bunch of raw ingredients out in the wild, helping to unload carts, or transport supplies. It made sense given just how much grunt work there was to go around, but she wasn’t expecting the Guild to handle so much of it like it was. This sounded like it would be exhausting to process.

Soleil skipped to the middle of the stack. Maeve did not seem interested in the top half of the stack either.

“Looking for anything in particular?” Aster asked.

Maeve’s response was automatic. “Threats to the food supply.”

Soleil and her had wordlessly been in agreement then. She soon found what she had been looking for. “Here’s a request to deal with a number of corrupted plants spotted upriver. I don’t recognize a lot of the symbols here, but I imagine they are looking for long range specialists in order to safely clear it out.”

Aster looked the notice over. “That’s about as good a reading as one would expect without having the system explained to you.”

Maeve clutched one request close to her breast before quietly sliding it towards Soleil. “I want to do this one.”

Soleil sucked in a breath. It was high priority and high danger, even if no combat was expected of those fulfilling the request. A number of Knights operating in the area were requesting scout support. [Identify] was sufficient given enough ranks, but [Analyze] was preferred. This request specifically involved supporting Caesar’s unit of Magitech Fuisilers. Soleil would have questioned it, until she read further. She quickly realized that this particular group was being deployed in place of a Magitech Armor unit.

“Barnabas’s?” Soleil asked.

“Yeah. I knew that our orders had been to assist Caesar’s unit even before we arrived. I don’t want them getting into anything they can’t handle and well…”

“[Analyze] is a rare skill.” Aster mused.

She looked at Maeve, who in turn gestured to Soleil.

“I have it.” Soleil admitted. “And I’d be willing to help them.”

Aster frowned. “I don’t think we should make any hasty decisions until my friends get here. You might even want Veilura in on this.”

“They are both worth doing.” Maeve relented after putting the request that described a corrupted threat to the water supply that Soleil had picked back down onto the table. “This request sounds like Malady’s work in particular. Either way, dealing with a high threat request or corruption might demand we rest afterwards. We will want to be sure about which one we want to tackle first.”