Chapter 48: Healing

The first person Arthur treated was not an anteater, although that was the closest thing he could analogize to her. She told him that she had taken a heavy blow to the back of the head when she was a little girl. The surface wound healed just fine. But the damage to her nerves was permanent. A few times a month, she got nauseous for days.

The tree demon that came next was old, perhaps the oldest person Arthur had met in the demon world. He had gone places and done things. He had seen sights. He had accomplished great feats, loved, lost, and loved again. And now, at the end of everything, he was cold. He could deal with his joints aching. That was just pain. What really bothered him was the betrayal of his metabolism, one that left him frigid to the bones even in warm rooms.

More than anything, he was surprised at how minor some of the problems were.

He talked with demons with bad joints, or ones that were embarrassed to tell him that their digestion wasn’t so good, anymore. He met a demon with pyrophobia after a magic fire once almost burned them to cinders, and a person who simply couldn’t sleep more than a few hours a night.

People were suffering, yes, and he took that seriously. But in a world of magic and alchemy, he had assumed the kinds of things that went untreated and unhealed would be things like detached limbs, or massive curses that plagued them day or night with unspeakable pain. But much more often than not, their pain was mundane. Most cases of arthritis were curable here, but not all. Most people’s headaches were treatable, but some resisted both drugs and spells.

Some of the people he recognized, and he would have never guessed they had problems based on what he saw from them in public. They moved around the world, quietly and without complaint, simply tolerating their pain while trying to accomplish as much as everyone else did.

And Arthur, to at least some extent, knew how they felt.

Nobody liked a buzzkill. He had hated his job back on Earth. The longer he had been living in the demon world, the fuzzier his memories of all that had become. Still, however faint his recollections were, he was becoming more and more sure he had disliked most parts of his Earth life.

But he had never really told any of his friends or family just how much he wanted out from everything. The acceptance of a painful existence had been so deeply ingrained in him that it took weeks of better living to undo.

“Here. Try this.”

He handed the next patient their own custom-brewed, magic-infused boba. He didn’t have any special ingredients with him, nothing that would be a magic cure-all for every disease. Instead, he sat with the people, listened to how they hurt, and then tried to imagine it for himself. And once he had a good mental image of what the tenth sleepless night or fiftieth time an old wound had reopened might feel like, he imagined a tea that gave some relief.

He didn’t aim high because he knew he wouldn’t make it.

Digestive Tea

This tea has a very slight stomach-settling effect and promotes better digestion.

Duration: Twenty minutes

Warming Tea

This tea imparts warmth to the drinker slightly better than another drink of similar temperature would. In addition, that warmth is slightly persistent, sticking with the drinker for a short while after they consume the beverage.

Effects: Slight warming effect

Duration: Two hours

Every time Arthur made a new cup, he took special care to listen to the people he was serving. He put as much majicka as he could in each cup of tea, maximizing his regeneration during the long conversations.

That wasn’t something he had planned on. At first, he wanted to speed run the room and make as many cups of tea as humanly possible. But as soon as the demons began speaking, he felt the wrongness of that idea. It wasn’t right to listen to someone’s problems and then do just the bare minimum. It wasn’t nice.

So he’d empty himself out, dumping all his majicka reserves into a single cup. Then he’d catch his breath and do it again. And again. And again. It wasn’t until hours later that he felt a pair of hands suddenly grasping his shoulders, and another moment after that before he realized he’d collapse on the ground without them.

“I thought so,” Itela said, guiding Arthur to a chair. “You see young healers do the same thing sometimes. They go into a sort of trance. Here, take this.”

Arthur took a small green pill from her hand and downed it, dry. “For majicka regeneration?”

“For the headache. You should be getting one any moment now.”

Arthur began to explain that he was fine. And then the first wave of the headache hit. He was not fine, it turned out. He groaned and laid his head down on the table.

“Why is it so horrible?” he asked. “I’ve been overdrawing my majicka for weeks. It hasn’t been like this.”

“Well, that’s part of your answer, right there.” Itela picked idly at her fingernails. “But you’re in a heavily enchanted room, pushing yourself again and again while the room assists with your regeneration. Didn’t you notice you were filling back up on majicka quicker than normal?”

Arthur decided to treat that question as rhetorical. He kept his head down and his eyes closed for what felt like minutes until the pill finally kicked in, taking the worst of the pain away in a sweet wave of relief.

“Oh, there you are.” Itela smiled. “Good to have you back.”

“Thanks. Good to not have mind-bending pain anymore.”

“I have to say, Arthur, that I’m impressed. Some new clerics, people who would swear up and down that they want to spend their entire lives helping people, don’t figure out the whole talk-to-the-suffering bit until it’s pointed out to them.”

“Really?”

“Really. I swear some of them pick up being a cleric because of the image. Someone had the genius idea of writing romance novels with female clerics in them. The darling of the heavens, the maiden of light, curing all ills with her mighty magic only to be swooped up by the charming, utterly handsome man. And people have been trying to become clerics ever since.”

“You can’t blame them. You do bring a certain level of style to the job, Itela.”

“And Karbo does so well as the soft-spoken, mysterious man.” She chuckled. “But yes, you did well.”

“Couldn’t have been that well. I don’t think I broke a ‘slightly’ effect threshold all day.”

“You don’t have the right mindset on that, Arthur. If you’ve been living with the same pain for years, treated as well as it can be treated, how much do you think you’d appreciate a new relief, no matter how small?”

“A lot, I guess.”

“That’s right. Several of these people made a point of asking me what you did and I pointed them at your shop. They were sad when they heard it wasn’t open quite yet.”

“Oh thanks,” Arthur said. “So I guess I’m good to come back tomorrow, and train again?”

He hoped he was. The day had been far from useless. He examined his status sheet, flicking it over to Itela so she could take a look too.

Level 18 Teamaster

Stats:

STR 5

VIT 8

DEX 10

PER 17

WIS 23

INT 5

Primary Skills: Teashop Brewmaster (Level 10) Food Scientist (Level 12) Medicinal Brewer (Level 9)

Achievements: Shop Owner, Mass Prep, Buffer Against the wave, Rise Together

“Oh, that’s good. Right on a threshold with that medicinal skill. You should see a bump in power as it crosses over level ten. Sometimes, people get new aspects of how it works when it crosses that hurdle. Yes, come back tomorrow. We can see if we can get you over that hump.”

“Not an option, I’m afraid.” A new voice sounded from a few steps away, forcing both Arthur and Itela to look up. It was the doctor, still in what Arthur recognized as his work clothes. “I’m afraid the young woman has taken a turn for the worse.”

“How?” Arthur cut in. “She was in good shape last night. Not perfect, but…”

“She’s just not very strong, Arthur. Physically, I mean. Mentally she’s as tough as they come. Which is probably why you thought she was doing better than she was.” He sighed. “Why I thought she was doing better than she was, very honestly. Skills only tell you so much. The rest is judgement, and…”

The doctor slumped a bit.

Itela stood up and put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s happens to all of us. Nothing you can do about it now but move forward.”

The doctor took a deep breath and let it out slowly, recovering a bit in the process.

“Thank you. But the fact remains that she’s doing much worse. And while your drink certainly helped, tomorrow will be an important day for her. Maybe the most important. We are pulling out all the stops we can to help, but…”

“You need more tea. Got it. I’ll get her one tonight, train tomorrow, and…”

“No, Arthur,” Itela said. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“But the threshold. If I can push over it, it should be better. Right?”

“She’s right, Arthur. Skills have a sort of endurance all their own. The hundredth cast of the day is going to be different from the first cast. So even if you get to level ten, the tea you make might not be as good as it should be. Sometimes even to the point of failing completely.”

“Ah.” Arthur slumped in his chair. “So, what’s the move, then?”

“Does he have enough majicka for one more tea today, Itela? Without damaging his abilities tomorrow?”

“Probably. You have to go home to get the right materials for it, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes. Although that headache is going to come straight back.”

The doctor nodded. “Good. Go home, make the drink. Have it sent over.”

“I can’t bring it myself?”

“Not today. She’s resting now. And once she has the drink, she will need to rest again. And you need to get every ounce of rest you can yourself, too. Eat a large meal. Sleep as much as possible. Rest as much as you can tomorrow, then take the absolute best shot you can. Do you understand?”

Arthur didn’t know how he was going to manage any of those things, feeling like he felt. But if it was the best chance they had, he’d have to. He nodded.

“I’ll send Milo with the tea.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow evening, then.”

—

Arthur made a second anti-venom boba. For all intents and purposes, it looked exactly like the one he had made Mizu before. But he could tell that it was just slightly worse.

After sending it down to her by Milo express, Arthur sat down, explained the need for a big meal to Ella, then sat back as she spent the next hour preparing dish after dish. He stuffed as many calories as his body would tolerate before forcing himself up the stairs and to his bed.

And then he laid there. And laid there. He couldn’t sleep. He was exhausted, majicka-drained, and emotionally depleted like he’d never been before. And he couldn’t sleep. Which was the entire reason he was able to notice an owl-head poking around the door to see how he was doing.

“Oh, hi, Lily. You can come in.” Arthur turned a bit onto his side, his cheek still down on his pillow but facing the door a bit more. “I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you the last few days. It’s been tough.”

She walked into the room and pulled up a chair to the side of his bed, struggling with the weight of it as she slid it across the floor, set it at the right angle, and sat.

“Because of that girl?”

“Mizu, yeah. She’s sick. I’m trying to help.”

“You like her.” It wasn’t a question, really, or even a little-sister-jealousy type of statement. It was just a statement, a flat declaration of fact.

“I do.”

“So it’s hard.”

“It is.”

“Ella said not to bother you so you could sleep. But you can’t sleep?”

“Not yet. But you don’t have to worry about that.”

“I can help.” Suddenly, there was a feathery hand on his forehead, softly stroking back to his temple. “My mom used to do this when I couldn’t sleep, before… A long time ago. It works. You have to close your eyes though. Or it doesn’t work.”

“I really can sleep by myself.” Arthur yawned. “Eventually.”

“It’s okay. I want to help.”

Arthur later vaguely remembered arguing a little longer as the tiny owl stroked his head. But before too long, the motion triggered some long forgotten conditioned response from childhood. Drained of both mystical and normal physical energy, he slept like a log until morning.