It had been ages since he’d last experienced any share of combat for himself, and Aksal cursed the fact that even a simple goblin raid could leave him winded. In the days of his youth, when he’d fought alongside Palas and Kera prior to dedicating himself to an [Alchemist]’s calling, he had been able to stand against far worse foes.

“… and that’s when Kylan used his [Distract] to find an opening to take down the hobgoblin,” Eric said, glancing over at the [Trickster] beside him. “You get it, right? We didn’t have a choice but to come back! If these stores of Bang and Boom blow up, everyone still in the village could have been caught in the blast!”

Aksal was silent for a moment. He knew that what Eric said was true, having been treated to witnessing the potency of his invention first-hand. One of these ‘grenades’ alone wasn’t all that potent on its own, but the quantity that he had somehow been able to scrape together was nothing to scoff at. With where the goblins had pushed him and the other townsfolk back to during the village’s defence, everyone could have perished had it not been for the actions of the little ragtag trio before him.

A [Biologist], a [Trickster], and… a [Slime]? Did Slimes even have classes?

A month ago, Aksal wouldn’t have thought that would ever be a legitimate question worth considering.

“Well, it’s good that you’re all safe. Good work Kylan, Eric, Slime-bro.”

A month ago, he also wouldn’t have thought the word ‘Slime-bro’ would ever leave his lips, but things just were just never entirely normal when it came to Eric.

He tried giving a smile, but he knew it was slightly strained. Who could blame him? After having sworn to protect Kylan in his younger brother’s and sister-in-law’s stead, his first day outside of Hawksmoor had seen him thrust into the thick of battle against a hobgoblin.

“You three should get back to the inn and rest,” Aksal said. “These good folk still want this old [Alchemist] to help and see how much damage the raid did to –“

“Master [Alchemist]!”

Aksal turned around, toward the direction of the square where the main group had been. Three villagers he recognised from earlier were approaching, shouting as they ran. Mere [Farmers] and [Shephards], who had been forced to bravely bear arms even though they barely had any skills suited to combat.

One of them – Tarin, was it? – gasped, panting heavily, both from the fatigue of battle that had only just ended less than an hour before, and from how much he had pushed himself in searching for Aksal. “Please! Potions! It’s Caleb! We need potions!”

Aksal was alert at once. “What is it?”

All three of them weren’t faring well. They sported injuries – both treated and untreated ones – and the makeshift armour they had been able to scrap together for the battle was still adorned on their persons, having not yet had the time to truly find reprieve. Though the surviving goblins had fled, it was evident that these townsfolk were still in a state of desperation and panic.

“C- Caleb!” the second one cried out, words punctuated by rapid breaths. “He… he was hit by that shaman’s curse! Gloria’s trying to heal him, but she… she says that she can’t work on the curse and heal at the same time! Please, we need your help!”

Aksal cursed under his breath. He’d seen that goblin shaman at the rear of the raiding party back during the battle, and it had been the shaman’s spells that had kept them continually on the back-foot while trying to avoid its hexes and curses. Gloria – the caretaker [Cleric] of the local Church of the Five, had been focused on using her [Priest] skills to shield them from harm. Aksal had finally managed to take it out with a [Magic Missile] near the end, but evidently, at least some of its deadly spells had found their mark.

“Show me,” he ordered immediately, already moving to join them, fishing out one of his remaining healing potions that he hadn’t yet distributed to the townsfolk. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“R- right!” The poor lad’s eyes were filled with relief, beckoning him on. “Hurry! Gloria says she won’t be able to maintain her [Bless] for long!”

As he neared the square that now bore signs of battles, arrows and debris scattered around the formerly idyllic village, he could see the makeshift infirmary that the townsfolk had set up. None of them had perished in the raid, but a fair number had suffered injuries and were having their wounds attended to.

It was obvious where Gloria was currently working her skills to keep the shaman’s curse at bay. A ring of light surrounded her, chasing away shadows and warding away the effects of the foul spell, the injured villager lying unmoving upon a blood-soaked patched quilt. Onlookers stayed just beyond the zone created by the [Bless] spell, watching on with worry as their friend’s lifeblood slowly ebbed away. There was a nasty wound in his thigh, blood soaking through the sheets that were wound tightly around it.

Aksal was by their side immediately, already uncorking the potion. “What curse is it?”

“Crimson Weeping,” Gloria forced out through clenched teeth, concentrating fully on her spell. It was clearly taking its toll on her, with beads of sweat rolling down the sides of her face. “The moment I lift my skill, he starts bleeding again. I can’t –“ She winced, the glow pulsing for an instant as she refocused on maintaining her spell. “I can’t try and [Heal] him while the curse is still upon him; he bleeds faster than I can repair the wound!”

Crimson Weeping was not the actual name of the skill, of course – no one knew its true name, or indeed, whether those creatures even had skills and levels the same way that the people of Vergence blessed by the gifts of the Five did. Still, from the deathly pallor of the man barely older than Kylan, it was clear that he would soon perish without intervention.

Aksal tipped the contents of his potion down his lips, hoping it would be sufficient. It was of a quality higher than that he had distributed prior to the battle, but it was not adventurer grade. For the longest time, he hadn’t had to create potions with potency the likes he once had back in Grynasar, instead focusing on products more suitable for Hawkmoor’s community. There was simply no demand for it.

“Come on, lad,” Aksal muttered, watching the injured man. He was barely moving, without so much as a groan escaping him. “Come on…”

“Nothing’s happening…” Tarin stammered. “Why’s nothing happening?”

Potions – and indeed, even skills of the [Priest] archetype – had their limits. Each potion or healing skill had their maximum severity to which they would knit wounds together and restore strength to the fallen. If even the highest quality potion he currently had at hand was insufficient, then…

What could he do? He knew the recipes needed to create potions potent enough to bring one back from wounds severe enough to leave one on death’s door – had discovered a few of them himself during his time in Grynasar – but even if he had the reagents on hand, he would still need the time to brew them, and by then…

“Master [Alchemist]!”

There was nothing he could do. Once again, for all the knowledge he had accrued, the title of Master Alchemist he had earned in the Guild was all for nothing.

“I –”

How could he explain that even he – a Level 27 [Alchemist], granted the rank of Master within the Alchemist’s Guild – could do nothing more than them?

“Let me see.”

“H- hey, you can’t just –”

Eric?

He whirled around toward the voice. Aksal had forgotten about him and the others, as focussed as he had been while Tarin led him to the injured man. Kylan was standing away from the others, expression unreadable as he stared at the fallen man, fists clenched.

It was why Aksal had never wanted his nephew to become an adventurer. When Palas and Kera had disappeared during their mission, the boy had been inconsolable for weeks. A life as an adventurer would be filled with nothing but death.

But Eric –

It was sometimes hard to reconcile this side of him with the [Biologist’s] whose thoughts flowed freely from mind to mouth. Eric’s eyes were sharp and focused behind those glasses of his, taking in every detail of the downed man. There was none of his usual humour and easy-going nature.

And yet, the last time that Aksal had seen Eric this serious, he had done what [Alchemist] and [Cleric] alike had thought impossible for generations.

“Who are you?”

“He’s with me,” Aksal hurriedly assured Gloria, as she continued to keep hold of her spell.

Her lips were pursed, but there was no room for her to argue. Wordlessly, she turned away from Eric, her attention fully fixed on maintaining the [Bless].

Eric first knelt by Caleb’s feet, doing nothing beyond inspection. He stayed that way for several moments, before finally nodding, ignoring the mutters of the villagers gathered around.

Then he placed his hand just inches from the wound. A blue glow surrounded his palm, a sight that Aksal had seen several times before. [Bio-Analysis], Eric had called it.

“Amazing,” Eric muttered after a moment’s pause. “But how? Why?”

One of the townsfolk bristled at that. “Amazing?”

Eric was lost in his own world, airing his thoughts aloud. “If that’s… factor seven? Then that’s ten, and that’s thirteen, and eleven and nine… but if the endothelium is already damaged and collagen is already exposed, then why are the platelets just – and tissue factor is literally right there –“

No, Eric, don't let your thoughts go wild right now -

“Oi, that’s enough!” The villager stomped forward, reaching out to grab at Eric, but Aksal intervened, stepping between them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the villager roared. “Caleb’s injured!”

Aksal didn’t bother replying. Right now, aside from the [Cleric] Gloria, it was likely that Eric was the only one who knew enough to somehow make a miracle happen, as he did previously with Arlett and Prisca. “What is it, Eric?”

“It’s… a localised haemophilia?” he said uncertainly, not turning away in the slightest as he responded, that tone of awe still present in his voice. “No… that’s not even accurate – everything in the clotting cascade is still there, but –“

Eric seemed to have caught himself before he would have spiralled into another one of his incomprehensive endless spiels. Instead, he broke into a measured tone, speaking methodically as though reciting from a text.

“Patient’s airway and breathing are uncompromised, but there is haemorrhage from right fem-art distal to branching of profunda femoris artery that is causing circulatory decompensation. Injury is not technically severe, but hypovolaemic shock is compounded by failure of coagulation specific to site of injury.”

Aksal understood less than half of what he said, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t as though it was any more sensible than the endless string of words he, Kylan, and Slime-bro had been subject to from the time that they knew him.

Kylan finally stepped forward. “Can you heal him?”

For several tense seconds, Eric was deep in thought, muttering under his breath, his eyes darting around. They were fixed on Slime-bro for a moment, but then he shook his head, turning away again.

Then, he answered.

“No.”

No? But if Eric couldn’t do it, and Aksal didn’t have the reagents or time to create a potion, then there was nothing that they could –

“But… he’s dying…” Kylan spoke slowly. “You said you created that cure! Can’t you do something?”

Eric was silent.

“Kylan,” Aksal warned, shaking his head. “This isn’t his fault.”

“But –“

“Gloria.” Aksal turned to face the [Cleric]. There was a grim acceptance there as well. If potions and skills failed, there was little they could do. There was no sense in drawing out his death, unconscious though he may be.

She nodded solemnly, bowing her head as she looked at Caleb. "May the Five have mercy on your soul."

There was a little strangled gasp that broke out from among the villagers, and then –

“Gloria.”

No. Aksal had been wrong.

Eric had been silent – but that didn’t mean he accepted defeat.

The [Biologist] never accepted that there was a question that couldn’t be answered. There was an intensity in those eyes, and though he didn’t say it aloud, Aksal knew he had found a possibility out of many that might just save Caleb’s life.

“Gloria,” Eric repeated. “If this Crimson Weeping curse wasn’t there, would you be able to heal his wounds? Even in the state that they are now?”

“I can,” came the immediate reply. “It’ll take a bit more mana than before, but I should be able to manage. Still… if I drop my [Bless], he’s going to bleed out faster than I can heal –”

“And suppose that the curse is still there, but his wounds are healed,” he interrupted. “Will he survive?”

“Yes… but I can’t heal his wounds unless the curse is stopped…”

There was a flash of something across Eric’s face, and Aksal knew he had figured something out. Something locked away in that mind of his, that was apparently common knowledge from his world made freely accessible to all.

“How much longer can you keep your [Bless] up before you don’t have enough mana to finish the healing?”

She frowned, making a quick estimation. “Maybe… five minutes. Ten, at the longest.”

“Five minutes, huh?” Eric exhaled, then steeled himself. “I can’t heal, but I’ll try my best to stop the curse. Kylan, give me your knife.”

“You can’t try to suture his wounds shut; even with my [Bless], he’ll bleed out while you work if the curse is there!”

Murmurs broke out at that once more, but Eric seemed to pay them no heed, accepting the knife from Kylan.

“I’m aware.”

And then, Eric inhaled sharply, raised the dagger, and made a quick cut on the back of his own hand.

-x-x-x-

Magic was bonkers.

I hadn’t witnessed many major traumatic bleeds in person during my time in one short rotation in emergency medicine. I knew the acute trauma guidelines, but was by no means an expert in resuscitation. Theory and practice were rather different.

Still, this was a world of sword and sorcery, of demons and dragons. As crazy as it sounded, magic somehow factored into this case.

With [Analyse Physiology], I had been able to take a quick overview of how Caleb was faring. It wasn’t good – he was quickly decompensating. The magnitude of the bleed and the extent of the decompensation didn’t quite fit with the wound, however, and that had led me to more closely inspect the site of the wound with [Bio-analysis].

[Bio-analysis] was far more detailed than the intuitive glimpse granted by [Analyse Physiology], but accordingly, required a more specific question. It took several tries to examine the different possibilities of why the bleed was as pronounced as it was, despite efforts clearly made to stem the bleeding, but focusing on the coagulation cascade eventually revealed something I hadn’t thought to be possible.

The body was remarkably well-designed in its responses to injury. Inactive coagulation factors were always present in the blood, primed and ready to act, and yet in most cases only worked when required to. It was a wonder that hypercoagulable states and thrombotic emboli occurred as rarely as they did, and more often a result of side-effects on the coagulation pathway from other medication or causes, than an intrinsic defect of the pathway itself.

With [Bio-analysis], the moment I deliberately caused an injury unto myself, the theory of the coagulation pathway I had always dreaded thinking about in lectures and study came to life.

Injury caused exposure of collagen hidden away from circulating platelets upon damage to the endothelium lining the vasculature. Glycoproteins, von Willebrand’s factor, platelet activation and degranulation, fibrinogen-glycoprotein IIb/IIIa cross-links… words and sentences strung together that I had taken together as theory.

I could see them all.

And that was just primary haemostasis. The true coagulation cascade – intrinsic, extrinsic, and common pathways, and the underlying beauty of it all – came shortly after.

Tissue factor, likewise exposed upon injury. Factor VII, becoming activated on contact with it, kickstarting the downstream cascade. I could see it all – how it fed into the intrinsic pathway; how prothrombin was cleaved and activated by the Factor Va-Xa prothrombinase complex; how thrombin in turn both converted fibrinogen to fibrin to form the actual clot, and also looped back to feed into Factor V.

Jargon I had heard in lectures, names and words I had seen in textbooks. Factor XIII. Factor XI. Factor IX. Factor X. Factor V. Protein C, Protein S. Thrombomodulin. Fibrinogen; prothrombin. It all came to life, a functional puzzle where every piece had its role. Positive feedback systems that generated the so-called thrombin burst, to cause the rapid cleavage of fibrinogen and formation of the secondary haemostatic plug; negative feedback systems to bring the pathway to a halt once it was no longer required. The complement cascade that cross-talked with it.

Beauty.

And with what I had seen with [Bio-analysis] on Caleb’s wound, it was all wrong. Twisted.

Platelets came into contact with collagen, but they did not stick. Factor VII collided with exposed tissue factor, but it did not bind and activate. Somehow, biology was turned upon its own head, even though the constituents of the entire pathway were all there. It was almost as though Caleb was haemophilic, even though he had no deficiencies in any of the factors involved.

“Mmm…” I muttered under my breath, using another quick [Bio-Analysis] on myself, before repeating the action at the site of Caleb’s wound, comparing between us both. I frowned, then repeated the action on his healthy, injured thigh. “Ah… so that’s why…”

Aha.

It was subtle, but I could see why coagulation wasn’t working as nature intended. Somehow, for reasons I couldn’t even begin to fathom, the shaman’s spell was able to just mildly change the structure of several of the components involved in ways that prevented them from reacting together, their binding affinities for their normal partners too low. Though the latter portions of the pathway were intact, they remained inactive, because the earlier steps were being tampered with.

What was amazing – if unsettling – was that the magic somehow made it such that this effect was apparent only at the site of the wound, but nowhere else, even distally further down the injured lower limb.

Magic was screwing around with biology, and I would not let that stand.

I had my pride as a [Biologist], after all.

The best thing about biology was this: because of how well everything fit together, in ways and for reasons that the best minds of humanity had yet to fully discover, it made it remarkably easy to exploit.

[Manipulate Protein] hadn’t seen much use thus far, even though I had discovered the skill a few days ago following the creation of the vaccine. It was slow, temporary, and required an actual knowledge of how the manipulation should be made. Even with my best efforts, expending vast amounts of what mana I had, I knew that I could only defy the normal rules of proteomics to exceedingly limited extents.

But coagulation was a cascade. A snowball effect.

It amplified.

And so, ‘limited’ would be sufficient.

“[Manipulate Protein],” I said, bringing my hands over the site of the wound, unaware that I had even voiced the words.

The curse was fighting against my own magic; trying to unravel what I was doing. Still, what the curse actually did to the structures of the proteins involved was minor at best, but those small tweaks were all it took to completely prevent the cascade from initiating. I pushed back, overwhelming this supernatural force, using the phantom energy that was magic to force the natural interactions to happen despite all resistance to the contrary.

One activation of Factor VII upon binding to tissue factor here; a platelet glycoprotein VI-collagen interaction there. Piece by piece, I was laying the foundation; creating the spark to light the fire.

And then – slowly at first, gaining momentum – the other inactive clotting factors that had been lying in wait began to flare to life, finally allowed to perform the jobs that nature intended for them.

Once more, biology was starting to become as it should be.

“I… can’t… keep this up for much longer…” Gloria’s voice was strained. “Another two minutes at most.”

“Almost done.”

“Nothing’s happening –“ I could hear one of the villagers raising his voice. “Do you really know what you’re –“

He was quickly shushed by Aksal. “Let Eric concentrate!” he barked.

I couldn’t fault him for that outburst. He couldn’t see what I saw, couldn’t appreciate what was invisible to the eye. From his perspective, nothing had changed, since [Bless] was somehow physically preventing blood from leaving the vessel, masking what was happening within.

It made no sense – if [Bless] was meant to oppose the curse, why did it counteract the curse in that roundabout way, rather than treating the problem at its source? How could it even work?

But that was a question for later. I continued pushing – the curse was still there, opposing my every move, but it could not undo what I had already done.

Finally, I figured that there was enough haemostasis, even if there would still be a bleed.

“You can release your skill now.”

She hesitated for a moment, but then dropped the [Bless]. The golden field diminished, and there was a sharp intake of breath as some bleeding resumed, but still my plug held strong.

“What did you do?”

“I’ll continue resisting it while you repair,” I said, still using my skill, ignoring the mental strain that was joining the physical from this morning’s battle. As much as I would have liked to extol the beauty of biology, I doubted I could cobble together an understandable explanation right now. “The curse will still be there, but the bleed itself won’t be. You can do whatever it is you need to do to treat the curse later.”

I wished that I could somehow use two skills at once, to see with [Bio-Analysis] just how the healing was performed. Unfortunately, focused as I was on the task at hand, all I could do was observe and allow the questions to pile up.

How did the flesh knit together? What happened to the lost circulating volume? Did it all happen at once, or was it a methodical process of several steps? Was his haematocrit changing during this process? Was magic the sole driving force – in the same way that the mana of my skill forced the affected proteins toward their natural interactions – or did it abuse some facet of biology, just like how the downstream coagulation cascade had remained unaffected?

Ah, well. It wasn’t that big a deal. Now that I knew something like this existed, I could pay a visit to the infirmary or whoever it was that conducted such healing, whether it was during my time here in the village, or when we finally arrived in Grynasar City.

Hopefully, by then, Kylan and Slime-bro might have picked up some knowledge about biology, and could offer their own input. Perhaps they might be able to see something I missed? More pairs of eyes were always welcome.

Before I knew it, she was done. Right about time, too. My own skill, limited though its effects may be, demanded its fair toll of my extremely limited amount of mana. I was, after all, only Level –

“… nine?”

I had no new skills, unfortunately. Still, I had been only Level Eight just minutes ago. I hadn’t felt any difference after our victory against the hobgoblin.

And looking back, it had been the same as well, before. I earned my levels after experimenting with Project: Slime, and then again with Project: Liquid Fire, and when using my skills to create the vaccine. It seemed likely, then, that levels thrived in the way that the skills were used.

Was this solely frequency dependent? Did novelty factor in? If so, what defined novelty?

A hard question to answer, and I would need a good sample size for enough statistical power, with plenty of confounding factors and biases to account for.

But that could be a long-term project. For now, I was tired. I spared a glance at the still-unconscious patient, thinking about whether or not to try and go for an [Analyse Physiology], but decided against it. Gloria probably knew what she was doing, and the annoyance that was mana exhaustion was quickly starting to make itself apparent.

“You did it,” Kylan said, staring at me weirdly. “You actually did it. But… you’re not a [Cleric] or [Priest]…”

“Mmhmm,” I agreed, fighting against the urge to simply lie down and rest. “I’ll explain what I did to you and Slime-bro later. Also, within two months’ time, you had better be able to understand and explain in a manner I deem satisfactory just what the curse did and what my intervention involved, or I’m cutting your salary.”

Hey, I wasn’t about to have a founding lab member bring shame to our lab now, was I?