Mark, along with Jonathan and Karter, sat next to Sam’s bed as the timid morning light attempted to break through the curtain's sweeping fabric.
“She hasn’t moved all night”
Mark glanced up at Karter and nodded, cursing how slowly Prana regenerated. It had taken him most of the night to regather his strength, even now Mark only sat at about eighty percent.
During this time Mark had taken another look at Sam's situation and come up with a plan. What she was missing right now was twofold. The first, and main problem, was the fact that her mind was overworked. Mark could assist in this area, but it seemed that a secondary symptom of overuse was the inability to naturally draw Mana into one's core.
Which made sense, she had reached her limit and gone beyond that. Her core was incapable of drawing its own Mana, either through a lack of ability of a self-preservation instinct. Which meant she had no Mana to speak of right now. This was a problem, in that it denied her the assistance one’s Mana could provide to their mental recovery.
Mark couldn’t directly give her Mana without her retracting her Will, or causing more damage, so he had found a workaround.
Signaling for Jonathan to begin, Mark straightened his spine and began regulating his breathing. Matching his intake to Jonathan, who was sitting on the other side of Sam's bed.
The plan was obvious, if Sam couldn’t draw her own Mana, then they would bring her all the Mana her core needed.
At the same time, Mark sent a tidal wave of Prana toward her head. Simultaneously guiding the Mana toward her core.
Mark then began the long process of repairing her mind. He had already cast [Bestowal] on himself and now he popped his mental limit release. The outside world faded from Mark's purview and he immersed himself in repairing any damage he came across.
Working at his absolute limit was tough, but he could see the change happening before his eyes. Nerves were healed in moments, and neural pathways reignited, pulling in Mana as they were fully healed. At some point, Jonathan took over handling the Mana for Sam, and Mark let him. Even though he never used the energy, it was not hard to merely direct the flow toward her core.
Mark used the extra wiggle room to redouble his efforts.
When he felt himself reaching his limit he dropped back to more manageable speeds and just when Sam's core was reaching full he pulsed his Limit release once more and fixed as much as he was able before retreating.
The room was silent and Karter came nearer when he saw them siring after what must have been more than an hour.
“So?”
Sam's form no longer held the sleep of the dead, a more relaxed and calm expression had taken hold, and she even turned over in her sleep as she got more comfortable.
Mark looked back and grinned.
“She’s going to be fine, give her a couple of hours of rest to sleep off the remaining damage, but she should wake soon. Oh! And tell her not to cast as soon as she wakes up”
Karter looked as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
“I can do that, thank you, both of you. Now you two had better get going, Ethel has had her hands full since you left and I’m sure she would appreciate the help”
They both left the room and exited into the lonely corridor. As they walked toward the upper levels, Mark spotted a second sword on Jonathan's hip. This one was far shorter than the crescent blade he usually wore, probably closer to a dagger. Mark assumed since he was wearing them both, he probably intended to dual wield them. It was clear by the way he cradled the thing it was a reward from the Dungeon.
Mark wasn’t sure how the rewards had been distributed but by the look of the thing it could only be a Silver-ranked reward.
Sam being the one to clear the Dungeon, had to have received one of the four silver drops, so the last one probably went to Lisa.
Striking up conversion, Mark tried to find out how Jonathan was doing. The guy had been through some pretty traumatic, but he needn't have worried. Jonathan only looked hungry for another go at the possible third-tier Dungeon. The guy had a strong psyche, but Mark would keep an eye on him just in case. When they had returned, Mark had shared his thoughts on what they were facing down there.
Stepping into the penthouse, Mark was greeted with the breathtaking views of the city; the sight of Ethel, absorbed amidst an avalanche of papers, tore his eye away. Poking her head out from amongst the sea of documents, she wordlessly motioned them closer, then piled weighty stacks of reports into their arms.
“Right, We’ve been receiving many intakes recently and the Firestarters territory is now entirely within our patrol routes. Whatever NAS did, seems to have dissuaded Oscar from taking action, but we can’t drop our guard. Jonathan, you will be happy to know the Sage's wares are being received well, George wants to see you as soon as you are able. While Mark, the clinic’s opening day had some bumps. Some of the churches sent people to protest against our business model before we had to expel them from our territory. They did not like that.”
Even as she said it, a satisfied smirk rested on the corners of her mouth.
Glancing at the forms, Mark could see an encouraging increase in patients, now all it would take is time.
Stolen novel; please report.
Jonathan was looking at his documents and when he glanced at Ethel, Mark could see a subtle smile playing on his lips.
“Is this an accurate projection, including our non-specialized goods and services?”
Ethel pumped her brows merrily.
It took a while to figure out what they were referring to, but Mark got it soon enough. It seemed that with all the new intakes picking up jobs, and the drop of their specialized services, as a faction they were now breaking even. Hell, if the number were to be believed, they were making a tidy profit. There was still an uphill battle, but it was a stable first step.
At that point, they scattered, Mark went to check the clinic while Jonathan headed to the workshop.
When Mark walked in, his first feel was that of a well-oiled machine. The guards outside cut through the crowd of people. Picking out those who needed medical attention and those who were just there to cause problems or gawk. Past that point, the lobby of the community center had become a waiting area with simple functional beds and seating. The stark setup was painted in bright lights and white cotton. Simple screens gave patients their needed privacy, while deeper in the building separate rooms took on harsher cases.
Mark was still inspecting the large room when Donny and Abby came to meet him. Donny looked every bit the stalwart defender, while Abby had taken to running the clinic with a radiant smile that was impossible to fake.
“Good to see you, my dude. Where have you been… actually it doesn’t matter. The opening went off without a hitch. Not counting those asshats from the Church of the Guiding Hand, but don’t worry, we have it under control.”
Mark remembered seeing that name in the pile of documents he’d skimmed over. He felt a little down he could not be there for their opening day, but it looked like he'd left the right people in charge.
“Here and there, but it looks like you guys did an incredible job, don’t hesitate to send for backup if you need it. Rather everyone safe than sorry.”
Mark appreciated the fact that Donny was so nonchalant about his lack of presence, Abby on the other hand looked a bit panicked.
“I tried to do it like you would have wanted, but I don't know if I pulled it off. Tommis helped me with a ton of advice, so it's him you should be thanking. Oh, and he told me to tell you that he managed to get [Corruption Recovery] working-”
Mark had to hold up his hands in surrender as she rushed to get out her sentences.
“Abby, you did better than I could have imagined, breath. This is a marathon, if the numbers are to be believed, we’re going to start seeing a jump in patients soon, we need to be ready for that.’
Abby nodded absent-mindedly looking happy and a little overwhelmed. She offered to take Mark to see the final touches they had added in his absence, and he agreed. Donny ducked out at that point but not before giving Mark a mocking salute.
The tour was as he expected and he was glad to see everyone was taking the changes in stride. Mark had made sure to pay them well, but most of the staff seemed all too happy to be here.
Mark knew, that unlike before the fall, where knowing how to treat the injury was the only limiting factor. Now, with the new energies out there, a system had to be put in place to match the strength of the Healer to the patient. The back rooms were where their strongest healers worked, mainly taking the stronger Aura users on. But, what if time was short or the patient was unconscious, it was difficult to know these things. Mark would have to come up with a system to allow for easy classification so that they didn’t waste resources. Perhaps a trip to the healer's house was necessary, to visit the Doc and get his insights, but not today, Mark had other plans.
Once they were done Mark thanked Abby for her time and headed out of their territory. Mark was on his way to sign up for classes on summoning. He had struggled immensely to keep up with the number of things he had to manage down in the Dungeon, and Mark had never felt the sting of not following Gibby’s advice more.
So covering himself in a construct, Mark took off into the brisk air and headed for the Insitute. Throughout the morning hours, tumultuous gray clouds amassed, steadily, swelling until they loomed mournfully in the sky, casting the city in a luminous silver light.
Passing out of their territory saw small groups holding picket signs and shouting chants at their border guard. The only reason Mark did not investigate was because Ethel had assured him they were not a problem at this point.
When the arena came into sight, Mark did not hear the usual calls for violence issuing forth from the top. Assuming it must be a quiet day, Mark realized they had probably missed the second round of the fights.
Not fazed either way, he continued, as he had only joined to get a handle on how strong everyone was.
Land directly in front of the quarts board, he looked for the classes on summoning. Finding the most popular one he was about to sign up when he noticed the class started in twenty minutes. Cutting out the middle man, Mark took out his folded map of the campus and navigated the stretching hallways. Which had only gotten loftier in the few days he had been gone.
The class was run by a woman by the name of Dakota Boyle, and as luck would have it the classroom was situated on the third-floor spire. Namely, the glass one. Mark would have thought working in an entirely glass classroom was difficult, but it was not much different from any other room. The furniture was made of treated, varnished wood, and where walls would have blocked vision, an opaque tint acted to refract light. Small portals in the glass walls thinned out and became clear, offering a less distorted view of the grounds below. One thing was certain, the nature of the material used drew the environment outside into the space.
Mark was slightly early to the class but that made sorting out the payment easier. Dakota Boyle was in her early thirties, but her clothes were that of a woman much older. With a crisp, navy-blue cardigan over a floral-printed blouse. She had paired this with a pair of classic tortoiseshell glasses that perched atop her button nose.
“Hello youngen, You aren’t familiar, are you perchance here to sign up for my class? Sign-ups are nineteen hundred for two lessons”
Mark was about to answer when a small semi-transparent hamster bounced from behind the podium and in a grating voice, echoed her last words.
“CLASS!?”
Well, at least he was in the right place.
“Yes actually, but um… I was led to believe that summoning magic was not able to summon actual creatures.”
Frustration flicked across her brow as she clenched her jaw at the fuzzy beast and with a polite nod she continued, never taking her eyes off the little thing.
“That's quite right, I used to be a back-end developer at... it doesn’t matter. But you’re right, this little guy is just here to sell the gig. I threw him together to prove I could, and not what you will be learning if you take the class.”
The ghostly ball of fur interrupted her once more.
“DOESN’T MATTER!”
Dakota let out an exasperated hiss looking like she had to restrain herself from wrapping her hands around the little animal.
“He’s just a bundle of light, air magic, and an enormous collection of ‘If statements’.”
Mark couldn’t tell if she was talking to him or herself right now. Either way, Mark was interested. If he could make use of this technique to simplify even one thing on the battlefield then it would be worth it.