Chapter 89: Calling

Arthur took a deep breath internally and took the plunge.

“How does that end up working for wellers? I’m assuming they do pretty well in new settlements.”

Mizu nodded. “Wellers are a necessary class. Even in places with surface water. We irrigate, plumb houses, and improve existing water sources.”

“What about sanitation? Sewers and the like?” Arthur asked.

“There are sanitation classes that do it better,” Mizu said with a wry smile. “Welling is a rare class, but that’s an even rarer class than wellers.”

“Why?”

“Think about it.”

“Oh, right.” Arthur understood. “Probably not that many kids dreaming of working in waste water.”

“More than you’d think because it’s an easy class to level. But no. Not a lot.”

“What about wellers? Aren’t they rare?” Arthur said. “I know you just said so, but the city has tons of them.”

“There’s always more to do. People can always use more water, better water, colder water…” Mizu shook her head. “But the new cities also need wellers. It’s why wellers are eligible for drawing.”

“Drawing?” Arthur said. “New word for me.”

“The government accompanies expansion with a request for certain classes to move to certain places. It’s necessary to make sure each territory gets what it needs, and no more than that. But only for certain classes.”

“Cooks?”

She shook her head. “No. At least not in the expansions I’ve read about. Cooks are common. Smiths are common. There are always enough of those from volunteers. And some classes can be shared between settlements. A foundation class working with an earthmover class can level enough space for the beginnings of a town in a few weeks. That helps.”

“Huh,” Arthur said. “And if you’re selected, you have to go?”

“No. It’s a request. A firm request that you use your skills where they’re needed.”

“Seems harsh. People have families, people have friends.”

Mizu nodded. “It’s been a long time since the last expansion. So I’ve never seen it. But what I’ve read says they prioritized the young where they could. People our age.”

“Really? You’d think they’d go for higher levels.”

“Fewer commitments, less likely to be important to a city’s operation, smaller community, better adaptability.” Mizu ticked the reasons on her fingers as she went. “We can get more out of the opportunity and are healthier in general. Which is good, since an expansion town might not have a cleric.”

Arthur felt a yawn coming on. He did everything he could to suppress it, but it was a fighter. He opened his mouth so wide to accommodate its exit that he almost gave his cheeks stretch marks.

Mizu smiled.

“I’m boring you.”

“You aren’t.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’m just more tired than I thought I’d be. The trip back was hard in a weird way.”

“You need to go home?”

“Not yet,” he said. “This is still what I need.”

They sat there another ten or fifteen minutes before Arthur started to nod off.

“I think that’s a sign. Go home.” Mizu took his hand and pulled him to his feet. “I’ll come by the shop tomorrow. I promise.”

Arthur gave her a hug, nodded, and went on his way. It was time to get home, and long past time for him to sleep in his own bed.

—

“You look tired, Arthur. Really, really tired.”

“I am, Lily. Mizu sent me home to sleep. And I think I’d better. Sorry I couldn’t catch up with you more.”

“It’s okay. Are we working tomorrow?”

“We can. We’ll have to get there earlier to make the pearls. And only as long as you think we’re ready.”

“Oh, we are. You’ll see.”

—

Arthur slept like a log, or at least how they should sleep if their lives weren’t so active. He slept like he had eaten turkey marinated in nighttime cough syrup, then washed it down with a glass of warm milk and a three-hour documentary about fonts.

He woke up on his own before the light broke, showered, and was ready to go before Lily came to find him.

“Breakfast?” Lily asked. “I could cook some eggs. Ella showed me how.”

“Naw. I’ll send you to a stand for something later. For now, I want to see the shop. Let's go.”

They beat it through the city as fast as Lily’s little legs could carry her before Arthur got impatient, scooped her up, and carried her giggling under his arm as he ran. The outside of the shop looked the same, so Arthur stepped inside.

“Okay, so, boba-making can wait a minute. Come see the rune stuff first. It’s neat,” Lily said.

Lily started pulling various items off of shelves and showing them to Arthur, then dragging him around to the bigger stuff she couldn’t move.

“The cups do everything. But that can wait. These tubs get cold themselves. And then stay cold. For when we cool off the tea in the summer.” She pulled down a teapot, and then a small stack of what looked like thin slabs of stone. “The teapots stay hot better now. These little things mimic what’s on the big menu, so you can hand them out. Oh, and the menu sign can clean itself back to white now.”

She kept pulling down new wonders. He had spoons for exceptional stirring, storage bowls that kept things in them slightly fresher, and a dozen other little conveniences that he hadn’t known he wanted until Lily showed them to him.

There was just one problem.

“Lily, this is more than we paid for. By a lot. It’s more than I can even pay for, I think. What happened?” Arthur asked.

“Oh, that. It’s fine,” Lily said as she went to grab one of the cups. “It’s because of the cups. They do everything.”

“What does that even mean?”

“They keep hot stuff hot. They keep cold stuff cold. They clean easier. They don’t break. But that’s not the cool part. Watch.”

“It’s rare that I get asked to watch a cup.”

“Just be quiet for a second. You’re going to freak out.”

She filled the cup with water, then gripped it for a moment, concentrating hard on something Arthur couldn’t see. And then, suddenly, a film of energy materialized over the lid of the glass, covering it lip to lip with a shimmering, almost transparent circle.

“What in the name of the gods is that?” Arthur asked.

“Just wait. Watch.” She flipped the glass over, and the water sluiced against it without spilling a drop. She then held up her finger, got one of the straws, and plunged it through the membrane of energy. “I told the runemaster about those lids you are always talking about. The sticky ones. And he went a little crazy for a while.”

“What does that even mean?”

“He started mumbling and writing stuff down in his book. He forgot I was there. Couldn’t hear me anymore. I left to tell Ella, and she said he was just like that, and then I came back and he was still mumbling and writing. For hours. And then he made this. He said it was an interesting problem figuring out how to let the straws through without breaking the field completely.”

“That doesn’t explain how we have all this stuff, Lily.”

“Yes it does. He said it was paying for the idea. And for me helping with the idea,” Lily said as she puffed herself up. “I told Ella you’d be like this, and she said to just accept it and that it’s not your business how much the runemaster says the idea was worth.”

“Well, fine,” Arthur said. “I’m not going to turn it down. But we are definitely giving him his tea for free. Forever, if he wants.”

The store was spotless and ready to go, and that left making boba pearls. Between the two of them, they had a couple days’ worth of supplies cranked out in no time at all, and then it was time to work. As soon as they had their prep done, they flipped the sign, which lit up as it did.

“Oh, right. I forgot about that. The sign glows now.”

The customers started filtering almost immediately. Not a single one of them gave Arthur a hard time about having been gone. It was sort of the opposite, actually. They wanted to know where he had gone, what he had done, and all the exciting little details he could deliver during the minute-long wait for the water to boil.

“Is that part true? About the Hing taking down the Bison?” Lily asked. “I didn’t think they could do that kind of thing.”

“I got the impression Littal is not a normal Hing. Sort of like how Karbo isn’t a normal infernal.”

Arthur pulled a couple trays of cookies out of the oven, setting them out for customers to take with their drinks, free of charge. It was the least he could do with how nice they were being.

—

And just like that, a week passed. There were no events, no trips, no troubles. The regulars gradually found out he was back and became regulars again, and within a few days Itela came back from the capital and returned his patients to him. Apparently, his travel tea had worked just fine.

“And best of all, Arthur, is the fact that two of the patients aren’t coming back,” Itela said with the more excitement than Arthur had ever seen from the cleric. “Do you remember the case of the head trauma and chronic headaches? And the older badger whose kidneys never quite came back to full from his injuries?”

“Of course I do,” Arthur said as he made her a boba tea. “Cured?”

“Absolutely cured. A new treatment each, and they’re right as rain.”

“I can’t believe it. Congratulate them for me. Is it always like that?”

“I’m afraid not. If there was a new cure for an uncurable disease that often, we’d run out of sicknesses. And not that I’d mind, but the combination of things they go through to find these treatments is so complex it would make your head spin. Your tea actually helped, believe it or not. One of the doctors on the kidney case mentioned that the symptoms had improved before we even got him there.”

Arthur passed Itela a little peach pie he had made, and sat down at a stool across the counter from her. “It is still weird to me that I’m the only one who can do this. Not that I’m sorry, it just feels like a lot to hold up on my own.”

“I had some conversations about that. There are, it turns out, other people with similar skills. Yours is particularly powerful for a skill that doesn’t upset alchemy balance, but it’s not unheard of.”

“Hmm,” Arthur said. “You’d think you’d hear about them more.”

“Well, not to burst your bubble too much, but even your skill is fairly limited. As important as it is, it’s minor relief. You can make a good cleric into a very good cleric, or do the same with an alchemist. But outside of chronic issues, there just aren’t that many use cases for it.”

She tipped her glass up, pouring the last few boba pearls into her mouth.

“And honestly, Arthur, I’m glad about that,” Itela said.

“You are? I could help more people.”

“You could. And worse, you would. More people would be helped. But it wouldn’t be right for you. The people who are meant to be clerics and alchemists are either already that or will be. When people try to pursue classes that aren’t right for them, it doesn’t work. They don’t progress, and in the long run, the classes don’t stick. You were meant to make tea. I’ve seen you smile at some tea leaves when you don’t think people are looking.”

“It just… seems less important.”

“Only until you consider that a cleric merely prolongs life. For that to matter, that life has to be worth living. We are a society, Arthur. A pretty good one. And everyone plays a different role in that.”

She put down her cup, scooped up the last little bit of per pie, and sighed in satisfaction.

“I, for one, am glad you found your calling. Cherish it, Arthur. I certainly cherish knowing mine.”