Tale Of A Berserk Healer

"Hey dad, you needed me?"

"Oh good, Tara found you." Joseph leaned back from the bench he was carving vines into, casually flipping the carving knife around his hand to sheath it.

(Yeah, well good thing I finally worked my way through that basin just before she did... otherwise I'd have to explain a few things, haha...)

"So what did you need me for?"

Joseph stood, leading Ryth into another room, where the carpentry apprentice sat with a hand wrapped in bloodstained cloth.

"...so you want me to provide a healing instead of paying for one?"

Joseph nodded with a slightly self conscious look on his face, laughing sheepishly.

Ryth went forward, knelt next to the apprentice, and unwrapped the cloth.

After sinking some glowing golden mist into the wound and tissue surrounding it, Ryth tried out one of the ideas he'd come up with earlier in his experiments with the poisoned water.

He felt how it reacted would be the basics, but doesn't give it proper justice to the simple yet incredibly effective technique.

The body naturally drew in his magic to heal itself or help sustain its vitality, but those had different sensations.

Wounded flesh hungrily ate away at the energy to heal, while healthy tissue passively absorbed it to enhance its vitality.

But different wounds felt different too.

With different poisons it felt like different textures almost, a cold sensation his heat would burn away, but the more potent a poison, the colder.

Certain poisons seemed to have similar gradients of texture, and Ryth believed that had to do with how they were made up.

"Not that deep... looks like..."

(...there's poison?)

Ryth leaned back in confusion. "What caused this?"

The apprentice, embarrased, took out a rusted nail, bent and with drying blood on it, no longer wet, but sticky.

"...well that would explain it. Rust isn't good for you at all."

(Not poison, but rust? Rusted metal can cause infection... so I guess it's not poison, but rather a contaminants I can purify? But what if the poison is naturally produced by your body...?)

Shaking the thoughts away, Ryth first burned away the contaminants with the purifying magic, once again a focused scalpel of dense energy, and as soon as it was done...

The scalpel, the thin, dense point of mana, exploded. The energy flew out in a burst of magic, yet as it went outwards it began to curve, flowing into vague pathways curving back in, until a swirling area came to be.

To the Apprentice and Joseph, a thin line of golden light exploded out, the energy then forming streams that curved back into the wound, and swirled into and out of the flesh again and again, the tissue knitting close as the energy was siphoned off the streams into the wound.

All of this was contained with a sphere of focus, making it almost look like a transparent sphere of light partway filled by the arm, with swirling streams within.

Finally the wound was gone, and Ryth leaned back.

(After over a week of self practice I got barely anywhere, but after being exposed to how poisons work, learning more about them by experimentation, I am now finally taking real steps forward!)

He pulled up onto his feet from his kneeling position, taking a few steps back to burn some excited energy off while nobody looked at him, the other two still checking the healed arm.

"Looks good! Thanks Ryth!" The apprentice beamed up at Ryth.

"No problem Darjin..." Ryth sheepishly scratched the back of his neck.

He was 2 years older and taller, yet why did Ryth feel like a little kid was staring at him in amazement?

(It was just a minor healing by a not-that competent healer. Don't go acting like what I did was really all that impressive... I watched another Healer grow back a man's arm during a straight 2 hour healing!)

Ryth briefly walked down memory lane of how an adventuring party came to the Association, one of them bleeding out from a torn-off arm, and their healer was just keeping him alive by stopping the bleeding as best he could.

A healer named Taryn came down and over a period of 2 hours, stopped the bleeding, helped the man regain his strength, and bit-by-bit regrew his entire arm!

Ryth had stuck around throughout the whole process hoping to learn something, but just felt depressed by how impossible it seemed.

(I'll never be able to heal anything like that, which really matters. Healing a minor cut isn't all that important, but regrowing a limb saves someone's livelihood!)

(Perhaps being a healer wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel so damn useless...)

"Well... I'll be off." Excitement gone, Ryth said this in a rather numb tone, and walked away.

Joseph looked at his sons back, drawn in with hunched shoulders...

"Sigh... he can't even see his own value... hopefully an apprenticeship will do him good. As a father I can't do any more it feels... whoever your master is Ryth, I hope they help you and treat you right."

"Hm? What's that master?" Darjin noticed Joseph's mumbling, and felt curious!

"Oh nothing, just talking to myself. Now let's get to work, and this time, I will handle the nail-removal on Bentley's old bench."

~ ~ ~

Ryth walked up the stairs of the association, heading to Fion's office.

(It's nearly evening... he oughta be up by now right? Even if it's a quiet day with a lot less people going out...)

Within 3 steps of the door Ryth began to hear snoring.

(Or... Maybe... not.)

Ryth heavily slammed on the door.

"Oi! Old man! Open up!"

The snoring cut off, a grumble and mumble of curses floating to Ryth's ear instead.

"Yeah yeah, get up! It's near evening, how late did you even stay up? My god!"

A crash, accompanied by a bewildered "WHAT?!"

The door flew open, Fion standing without even his spectacles only to like out a nearby window.

"Damn... I stayed up creating charms of antivenin... but..."

He whistled at how low the sun had gotten, and headed back in, picking up his glasses and sitting at his desk, wiping away a line of drool of the wood surface.

"What did you nee- oh wait."

As he slowly came back to the realm of the living, Fion cracked his neck. "Right, right, interview. So I did get a bit more on that actually. In 2 days, at the Herbalist shop in the Drownings District, should have a bright green sign."

Ryth sighed in relief. That seemed like good news!

"However..."

(Oh no. No no no, please, gimme a break here.)

"...you're not the only one trying to become his apprentice. Another healer is going, and I hear he signed on with the church."

(F.u.c.k. F.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k, oh my f.u.c.kity, f.u.c.k.i.n.g f.u.c.k!)

"Yeah. That's how I felt just about." Fion agreed just seeing Ryth's expression.

"Well... hopefully it goes well, and by your 18th you'll have a good master! That's coming up soon ain't it?"

Ryth nodded numbly.

"Hey, I've known you since long before you awakened. You're a good kid, and have a very quick learning curve. I believe you can convince him that you can do better than some privileged child."

"A trained, well-fed, learned, cultured, privileged child." Ryth shot back, bitter and annoyed.

Fion winced. "Sorry... I've done all I can."