------ Chapter 4: The Siege of Calbin ------

Arga fished out a bucket of well water before he passes it to me. I quickly take a handful and wash my hands and another handful to wash my face. To wash out my left eye, I have to hold it open with my left hand while I use water manipulation magic to bring some water up to my eye. I realized the water is going to be really cold so, I warmed it slightly before applying it.

The sensation as I try to swirl the water around my eye hurt which made it more difficult to focus my control. After the first flush I could actually see through my eye and my tears were able to wash out the rest.

“That control!” the priest spoke in surprise behind me.

I turn to my right again looking with my good eye, both the priest and Arga were surprised.

“How did you do that?” he continued to ask.

I thought for a moment before I move my hand towards the bucket, I use my water magic to draw out a drop of water. I raise the drop up and looked towards them again. Their look became even more surprised.

“What did you do to learn that kind of control?” the priest asked again.

“I did this a lot.” I replied as I made multiple drops of water appear on the bucket’s surface, I dance the drops around in a pattern.

“the hard part is keeping the drops from being pulled back into the water’s surface.”

The priest kneels down next to me, his mouth open.

“This was how you developed your healing?”

“This was practice, I learned to feel the mana better and focus my control of it to a small point.” When I said that I form an even smaller drop of water on top of one of the existing drops, this new drop is one quarter the size of the bigger drops which are smaller than a thumb.

The priest’s eyes were wide open, he was covering his mouth with a hand. I felt satisfied with myself to see him this way after he was so cynical before.

“Mages spend their entire lives developing their control over mana and I’ve never seen someone with this degree of focused control.”

“They build their mana flow.” I replied.

The priest looked towards me.

“In order to throw out a lot of mana to cast big spells, you need really high mana flow right?” I continued. “I trained on my mana focus instead.”

Mana focus is something written about in the magical theory text I read. The text never taught me anything about traditional magic, instead it discusses the possibilities of magic. I then experiment to find out what I can do.

“When someone trains to become a mage, they encourage the training of mana flow as soon as possible to build it up as high as they can.” The priest adds.

“How does this affect your other magic?” Arga asks.

I reach my hand out and force out as much mana as I can to feed a fireball. The ball that emerged is about the size of my hand.

“I… can’t put anymore into it.” I continued before I have to stop and take a breath.

The priest has a perplexed face.

“You can’t cast large magic, yet you can control it to such a high level?”

“Well… instead of just feeding more into it, I focus the effect, like this.” I reply creating a small flame, I feeding a current of air to increase the intensity of the heat.

The flame whistles lightly as it glows a brighter colour.

“The same applies to when I heal, I don’t push a lot of mana into the wound, I focus on specific parts. Different parts of the body need different treatment, muscle is different from bone, arteries are not like skin.”

“Where did you learn this?”

“I read some of it from a book, the rest was experimenting on different things, when I was bored.”

“Haha!” Arga replied with a laugh, “He’s a genius alright.”

“This is so different from what I was taught as a healer.” The priest responded.

“Because its not healing.” Arga said, “He’s more like a surgeon.”

“What?”

“When you heal an arrow wound but don’t remove all the bits, the healing will encase that in flesh. Which becomes a problem later on. Surgeons remove that to prep the wound to quickly healing. Kordi seems to do both at the same time while spending just enough mana to heal it.”

“I still have a hard time understanding it, maybe I’m overthinking it.” The preist replied as he leaned back.

“Maybe.” Arga smiled.

“Well Kordi, I’d like you to work with me at the temple more, we will to heal the injuries that will come our way during this siege.”

I nodded towards him, it seems like he has given up on trying to get his head around the situation for now.

“Oh, I should introduce myself, I am Patyr, head priest of the Calbin temple of faelin. I hope to learn more from you.” Patyr said as he stands up.

“I hope to learn more as well.” I reply.

Patyr gave a sarcastic smile, “Well, I hope so too.”

I follow Patyr back to the temple where he introduces me to the other priest who I have not met before. I received a temple robe along with a shirt and pants made of silk. The robe is a similar design to the other priests, only this robe is a light grey fur and not dark brown or black.

The fur faces the inside of the robe like the fur clothing I had before. However, this fur is an improvement over the kind my mother used. I know that the animals my mother and father used to make furs varied depending on what they did with them.

The good fur was sold or traded while damaged, low quality, or small pieces of fur are patched together to make something. My clothes were considered disposable while growing up. The fur and leather patches are reclaimed to make something else.

This robe is made from a single beast’s fur. The white fur tells me that it was hunted during the winter. In order to fit into the robe the parts of the robe are rolled up to raise the drape above my ankles and the sleeves are rolled up over my wrists.

The faelin emblem is sewn into the back as well. From what they tell me this is an acolyte’s garb, one that the priestess Lara had previously used before she was recently promoted. The silk clothing is provided from left overs they had in storage and are very comfortable to wear. Lara even combed my shaggy of hair.

Note: I drew Kordi a little older than he is at this point in the story, but the coat's the same.

Job at the temple now involves removing pieces stuck inside of wounds and fixing internal damage. Intestines, blood vessels, muscles, and bones all need different care to repair the damage. Once I fix the critical damage, one of the priests will take over and use their healing magic to saturate the would.

Because the priests have a considerably greater mana flow than I do the result is a very quick recovery that uses much less mana than normal. We quickly catch up on patients and most of the temple has become empty.

One of the priests jubilantly states, “Wow, I can’t believe this blessing. I did not think we would have spare time.”

“Yes, I greatly appreciate your help Kordi. Having someone around to specifically heal critical wounds has made everything go much faster.” Patyr added, “I will have to record my findings.”

While I worked on specific injuries I talked with one of the Priests, usually Patyr about the wound. If it is an intestinal wound we have to clean out and disinfect the area, because the intestines convert food into feces which are poisonous.

If the feces are not properly cleaned from the wound, infection will occur. We wash the wound with saline water I requested be produced. Treatment with hollip will remove any source of infection before the wound is fully closed. The patient drinks a potion brewed with a mixture of things including grincer and faelin to remove any fever that persists.

With muscles, I explained to Patyr the importance the fibers running through the muscle have to recovery. If the fibers are not connected right the muscle will be sore and take longer to heal.

Bones are not completely solid, they are hollow with layers. I learned this while examining animal bones, breaking them to see inside. The bone becomes spongy inside where the marrow is, yellow marrow is tasty and high in fats while red marrow is rich in blood. The red marrow is likely important for the body’s blood so, neglecting to heal the marrow right will cause problems later.

Reattaching a bone or fixing cracks properly requires care to build each layer right and to allow blood to flow back into the marrow. Patyr has quite a bit on his mind to write down so he leaves for his chambers.

The other two priests, Lara and Sterin decide to clean the temple up during the down time. They give me permission to explore the small city. So, I walk outside the temple, the sun is high above and my eyes sting from adjusting to it, the sun’s rise is lowering towards the south as winter closed in.

Unlike the Ferrel Valley’s autum colours, there are mostly pine trees around Calbin which retain their needles over the winter and the few broad leaf trees have now shed their dead leaves. The sun is warm, but the air continues to become colder. I thought about what I can do, I had eaten lunch while at the temple that was delivered by the townspeople.

As I wander around I find myself in the market, it is not very busy here as new merchants are not arriving. Currently the market is used to distribute food and supplies. Much of it is provided at a cost, unless someone has a job which grants meal tokens. The token itself is a small wooden carved token, the shape of a rectangular billet, which has markings for ‘meal’, ‘bedding’, or ‘drink’.

I see these being exchanged in place of billets. Jobs are given with these tokens as payment, if you do not work one of these token jobs you will have to pay with currency, some things could only be bought with tokens.

Drinks for example, are restricted items now; ales, wines, and liquors require tokens to acquire. I would assume that is to prevent someone from buying all the drinks to charge a much higher markup of billets for large profits.

I find some booths that are selling equipment and weapons which are different from the standard gear provided to militias. The items include enchanted or magic items. Sithril is a magical silver metal used for channeling mana to enhance or add effects to it.

These for sale items are almost all made of sithril, there is much more silthril here than I had seen before so I take some time to browse.

“Whatcha doin’ kid?” one of the merchants speaks to me from his booth.

“I just finished my work, now I’m bored.” I replied while I held my hand under my chin.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Did you come in from wilds for shelter?”

“No, I came in with two knights.”

“Hmm.” The merchant tilts his head and raised his eyes to think, “You that temple kid who's good at healin’?”

“Probably.” I reply, I do match that loose description.

“Well, you're on the look for good magic items then? I got a few to look through, like this one here, real good stuff. Made with gold from the Condrican river, sithril from from the Condrican forges, and even an Estruscan gem!”

The merchant holds up a bracelet of silver and gold with a red gem fitted to it. I know that I am not going to buy it, I now realize that I do not look like the shaggy forest boy when I first arrived. This merchant wants to see if I am a rich city boy the knights are escorting around.

“I don’t think you’d accept tokens for your wares.” I responded giving off some sarcasm.

The merchant chuckled, “Of course not; however, you could pay doing me a favour. I will let you pick one of these for your help.”

He gestures to the silver assortment of items, less value, but I am not interested in the overly fancy ones. I learned this from talking with the merchants who visited Ferrel years ago.

“sure, what do you need?”

“I have a friend who was traveling with me to Calbin when the Koblins attacked, he suffered an injury and the priests were too exhausted to fully heal him. I’m worried his condition would get worse, I’ve asked for faelin but it is restricted. Only the temple priests have any in large quantities.”

“I can help with that.” I replied.

The pay for my work at the temple is in faelin and I carry some on me; however, I decided to not disclose this right now. The priests did not want to distribute faelin because people will over consume it themselves expecting it to work better or faster that way. It is a waste, so they always check up on the person before providing faelin.

The merchant has his helper guide me to the room where the injured man was, the helper is a girl slightly younger than I, the injured man is her father. The merchants are traveling in a caravan, the two families often share trips for security. They had to leave behind one of their wagons to shake off the koblins who attacked their caravan. During the this the girl’s father was injured.

The injured man had received a deep bite wound from a Koblin, it is mostly healed; however, from the wound’s discolouration it is not cleaned well. I sit down and request a bucket of clean water.

I take some dried faelin in one hand and use magic to draw a large bubble of water with the other. I drop the faelin inside the water bubble and focused on warming the water while drawing out the medicine from the fungus.

From my experiments drawing fluids or dissolving things into water, I found that warmer water holds more, if the water cools, the dissolved material begins to settle.

I put this into practice this back in Ferrel when I was brewing potions.

I apply the water around his arm and focus on having the water to flow inside the wound. I know from my limited experience that transferring fluid into a living body is almost impossible. It feels like the body is blocking entry.

However, I had found out that using saline water as a medium I can get the medicine to hitching onto healing mana. I stumbled onto this idea while reading a chapter on magical theories that elaborated on properties of materials riding mana.

I follow through with the procedure to work in the faelin directly into the patient’s wound and began to work. The discolouration fades as I massage the arm, working the mana and medicine inside. Once I done I withdraw my hand and provide a small amount of faelin to the man’s wife.

“He can eat or drink this after it is boiled to make sure the infection is gone”

His wife clasps onto my hand.

“Thanks you!”

His daughter huggs my waist from behind. I cannot help but fluster as I receive this kind of gratitude and I search for a retreat. I find my opportunity when the daughter’s grip losens.

“I need to report back to your merchant friend who sent me.”

I quickly made my way back to the market area, the merchant is surprised that I was so quick, he followed his promise to let me pick out one of his small trinkets.

The items he is offering as a reward are simple in design and all made of sithril. They include rings, necklaces, and thin bracelets. The thin bracelets catch my attention, they are no wider than a little finger and are very wide rings. They loosely hang on the arm or are a tighter fitting ring that does not completely form a ring. That gap allows the bracelet to be slightly bent enough to wear.

I try a few of them on to see what their effect is. The merchant mentions that the bracelets help improve mana leaving your hands. I tested it to confirmed his claim, it was slight but the amount of mana flow I am able to output through the hand with the bracelet is greater.

However, there is one bracelet which I noticed has a different feel to it, the sithril has a dull luster and gave a cheap feel. The body is twisted while the head of a beast is carved onto each of the ends that face each other. I can not tell what beast they are.

What draws me to this bracelet is that instead of improving the flow of mana, it makes it a little easier to focus my control over it. The merchant notices that I am trying to get my head around this item for a while and chips in.

“That one is not the best I have, you can tell it doesn’t have as much silver in the metal so, it doesn’t have as much of an effect.”

“It actually works better for how I use magic.” I replied.

“What! Really?” The merchant exclaimed, “Maybe… maybe it was meant for you!”

I have a feeling he wants to part with the item, if he can exchange it for a favour instead of a higher value item it would be good for him.

“Sure, I will take it.” I told him as I adjust the bracelet on my right wrist.

The merchant showed relief and thanked me again for the help I provided his friend. I decide to head back to the temple and to show the priests my new item.

They are pretty happy that I am able to acquire a magic item, they were surprised I did not have any before. So, a simple one like this is a good start, they all have a few of their own they accumulated over time.

The following day began same way, I travel to the temple in the morning. There two adventurers who were patrolling suffered wounds from a Koblin attack. Their wounds are both arrow injuries that are both in the legs. I noticed a theme of leg wounds.

I examined their equipment after treating the critical injuries. Both of them use shields and their armour effectively covered their torso, shoulders, and neck. Thus, the legs are the next largest area to aim for with the benefit to slow down any pursuit. There is also a chance the leg injury will cut the major artery that runs through each leg.

However, the big event today began as the patrols returned early. They reported a major group of Goblins which are setting up a forward position to the north east. To avoid serious contact the harassment for today is on hold while scouts carefully track the Goblin positions for future counter attacks.

When I finish eating lunch at the temple I decide to leave and see what else I could discover in Calbin. Outside I find Arga waiting for me.

“Looks like you have a lot more free time on your hands now that you’ve helped clear out all the temple’s wounded.” He says to me.

“I might be able to find some people in town who need help.” I reply.

Arga lowered his brows and asked, “How much practice have you had with the bow again?”

“I was apprenticed under the village healer so, I learned only a little from my father”

“Hmm, come with me for a walk.” Arga replied crossing his arms.

We walk towards the tall hill east of Calbin, this hill is steep enough on the other side to block any approach as a natural wall. Arga continued what he wanted to say.

“Goblin war parties are getting close, in a few days we can expect some attacks on Calbin itself. We won’t use you in the front, your skills are vital in support; however, being prepared to defend yourself will be important.”

We approach an area behind a housing with a grass yard. Beyond the yard is a pine tree grove at the base of the Calbin hill. Arga turns to me and asked, “You ever get into fights?”

I hesitated for a moment, I do remember the incident in Ferrel.

“Once, I was attacked by a group of older boys.”

I looked away, hiding my expression, it is not a nice memory.

“What happened?”

“I... I lost, they hit me while I was down until an adult came. My teacher and parents wanted to keep me away from them so, I worked throughout the day at the herbalist workshop.”

Arga let out a short breath, “Well, pampering will do you no good here.”

Saying that, Arga walks to a barrel standing near the closest building, he draws out two wooden sticks carved into the shape of a sword. I take notice that much of the grass here is pressed down from many people stepping around the yard.

Arga passed one of the practice swords towards me, I raise my hands to catch it but it slips through landing against my shoulder. I pulled my head to the side to avoid it hitting my face. It is a clumsy catch.

Arga raised his practice sword, he holds it in his right hand close to his waist while he brings his left leg forward. His left shoulder faces towards me while part of his sword arm is hidden by his body.

“You might as well start working on using a sword, a bow is only good up close. Even if you spend years mastering a quick and accurate draw, the best skirmishers will still carry daggers or swords.”

“You should hold you sword with two hands.” He adds.

I adjust my grip to hold the sword with both hands.

“Grip it tight and block.”

As I tighten my grip on the wooden handle Arga lunges forward, my eyes catch his movements too late; however, his wooden sword is only aimed at mine. With a loud crack I feel pain surge through my hands and I lose sight of the sword in my hands.

Arga’s sword quickly returns and and the blade’s point presses into the base of my neck above the collarbone before stopping. I can feel the wooden point partially cut off some of my breath, the pipe my lungs draw air in through here.

If this was a real fight with real weapons I would be completely unable to breath and my lungs would drown in my own blood. I felt my legs become heavy at the thought.

Arga looks down on me, expressionless as his eyes only reflected death.

What lasted only a second ended as he draws his sword back and expression to return to his face.

“The most important part of fighting with a sword is not the power or speed behind it, but your grip. Starting today, I want you practicing your grip and swing.”

Arga walks towards my left where he picked up my practice sword from the grass, he hands it over to me.

“Go hit those trees until you cannot hold onto the handle, I’m sure you can heal your own blisters.” He says sarcastically.

“Once you’ve done that, run around Calbin until your legs cannot go anymore. I won’t be able to watch you so you can slack off and not do it. If you do slack, you will die when it comes down to a fight.”

“When your life is on the line you can pull out all your power but it will always be limited by your efforts before hand. So, swing and run. In a week or so I’ll check up on you to see if I should teach you some better things.” Arga takes a step closer and pats my head, I only stand to his waist.

The trees Arga had pointed to are already beaten up. This place was already used to practice in. I hold the wooden sword in my hands and approach a tree whose bark is already chipped and beaten.

Taking a swing at it, the sword clacks against the trunk and a stinging pain surges through my hands but I endure and continue to swing. Left swings and right swings, the pain begins to fade away as I can feel my body warm up. My breathing intensifies, and my arms begin to feel a burning sensation.

I had spent a lot of time swinging an axe while chopping wood; however, swinging from other directions and hitting a solid surface which will not split from a wooden stick is an entirely different sensation.

As my grip loosens and my hands tier I remembered Arga told me to also run. It will be a good way to allow my arms rest so, I run along the base of the hill towards the south. I do not take long to reach the edge of the small city.

I run past the Willhin manor along the grass yard behind the building which leads to a downhill slope overlooking an open field. Calbin’s main area is not directly built onto the hill side; however, it is mostly built on the raised land attached to the hill.

The southern field is full of small farms and farmer housing. There is no work being done to fortify this ridge line, instead I can see there are small wooden platforms being built. Around each platform is a small palisade of logs encircling the platform’s foundation. There are four platforms being built at the edge of the southern field.

The foundations for more platforms are being set in the middle of the field.

From what I can remember, the northern approach is being defended by a palisade wall of logs, the north slope is steeper. Since the southern approach is easier to attack the villagers are building small fortified points in the field.

I remember the Mayor talking about avoiding direct confrontation with the Goblins and Koblins; preferring to engage in skirmishes. Since there are many openings for an attack to come through, it will be easier to weaken an attack days before it happens. This will reduce the attacker's strength or delay the attack itself.

My arms begin to feel recovered so, I turn back around and run back to strike trees with the wooden sword. I am not able to get as many strikes into out the second time before I have to switch to running. This time, I decide to follow a path through the trees and up the hill.

This path climbs along the hill side at a steep angle and my legs suffer an intense burning sensation. I stop about halfway to take my robe off to cool down and catch my breath.

My mind recalls the time when I was caught and beaten. I cannot let myself stop to rest so easily. I chant to myself, you stop, you die.

The whole point of this is to push my limits and I should not need Arga to do the pushing for me.

“You stop. You die.”

The pain is intense and feeling to stop and take a break creeps into my mind. I force myself to remember how I was caught and beaten before.

“You stop. You die.”

It is my own body that lacks the speed and strength to escape and right now my body lurches forward. Each step feels as if each leg is held down by some force. My desire to relax on my right leg.

“You stop. You die.”

I swing my right leg forward and lose my footing collapsing onto my hands and knees. My weight holds me down and I don’t have the strength to really stand. It feels more like my fear is holding me down. I gave up when I was attacked and I did not try enough.

“C’mon, you stop… You die.”

Reaching forward I crawled up the path, gripping my fingers onto the grass and shrub branches. I know I was scared back then, I could have done serious damage if I was careless. But now I have practiced using magic to not cause harm. I can be confident I will not cause harm through carelessness.

“Come on!” I shouted as even my arms grew heavy.

I reach out, expecting to grab onto more grass to pull myself with, but there was nothing there. I raised my head to look. The steep climb levels to form the round top of the hill.

I collapsed and rolled onto my back, a great sensation came over me. The cool winter wind relieves my aching body. A wide sky lays above me from where I lay.

I spend some of the time taking my boots off to observe the damage. Swelling blisters are forming along the sole of my feet and the pain from these grows while the hiking high wears off.

“How do I get down?” I ask myself.

My muscles are aching, the fibers are mostly torn to the point where I cannot get enough strength to lift my body and the blisters are going to be incredibly painful when pressure is put onto them.

“Hehe.” I smirk to myself when I recall Arga’s sarcastic advice, “I guess I should just heal them.”

I have never healed blisters or sore muscles; however, I have experience repairing cut muscle fiber. Blisters are formed when layers of skin break apart from layers beneath them. Fluid from the body then fills into the space.

With the idea in mind I started with the blisters, massaging the fluid inside the blister with mana to work it back into my flesh. Once emptied I can simply attach the skin layers as if I am healing a cut skin. Some of the tissues deeper are sore but the result is tolerable.

The muscle repair is a little more challenging. There are no clear breaks or cuts along my muscles, it feels like there are countless breaks throughout the muscles. I can tell this because a muscle will shiver when it exceeds its limit. Whatever are pulling the muscle fibers together are losing grip or having their grip broken.

Eventually I found the right image and feeling, visualising lines of fingers pulling the fiber along seems to yield the best result. Much of the soreness has left my body.

While my mana is related to my stamina, physical exertion is different from mana exertion. The biggest limit I face now is my own hunger, I cannot properly heal my body if I am starving. There is no way to sait one’s hunger with magic and I did not bring a snack.

Before I leave I want to stay and look around from the top of Calbin hill. It is a wonderful view, I have never been up so high. Traveling within valleys makes the world always feels penned up by forests and mountains.

However, from here the sky is wide and I can see over the surrounding tree tops. The only limit to my view is the Kainran Mountain range that starts from the North East and continues north beyond what I can see.

The stone covered peaks cover the horizon with their sharpened ridges, said to have been carved by the very dragon that dwelled there. This is the farthest south the Kainran mountains reach, the range continues north for months of travel. The range almost reaches the frozen lands in the north.

I can feel myself become motivated, I could challenge myself there one day. I know the mercenaries and adventurers often talk about their journeys up the Kainran mountains to root out Goblins holes. The steep rocky slopes are considerably more different to fight in than forests.

I began to feel a chill, I will need to make my way down. The time I spent sitting left my legs stiff as I awkwardly shuffle down the sloped path. Eventually blood began flowing to my legs and I can move more normally. I feel a bit of defeat as I reach the hill’s base so soon, it is not as big as it felt going up.

I find and pick up the wooden sword to swung it some more, my arms still have strength in them. The vibrations from my legs began to become intense after I made another twenty swings. This and my hunger felt like a good sign to return.

I manage to make my way back to the Inn where I order some food to fill my empty stomach. I felt drained as I was low on mana, my hunger left my stamina and mana almost bottomed out. Without mana I cannot repair my sore muscles.

The meal must have been good, I do not remember it at all as I gained awareness walking towards the washing room. The sweat on my body robbed my body of its heat, even inside a warm Inn.

The Inn has a bath area, with warm water that can be scooped with a bucket to wash oneself with some simple soap made from animal tallow. I feel my limit straining everything I do. Washing and drying myself takes considerable effort.

However, the food began to kick in providing my mind with the energy needed to find my room. It does not take long for me to collapse on my bedding, I never even notice my roommates enter at night.

My deep sleep is only roused from the nagging sensation of my bladder. Surprisingly enough, the sun against my face and the noise from outside did nothing to wake me earlier.

This Morning is very rough for me, I am still feeling sore all over.

I apply my healing magic to help rebuild my muscles again. The parts that seem in the most pain are actually my tendons, thick strips of elastic tissue that connects muscle to bone. I have only really healed my muscles, I forgot about the tendons.

Thankfully I quickly finish tending to my soreness and order breakfast downstairs. I ate that meal quickly and arrive at the temple for work without feeling much discomfort. The work for the day involves healing around three arrow wounds and a spear penetration.

The spear wound entered under a militia recruit’s breastplate to pierce his liver. I spent extra time to make sure a thorough job is done. Livers are very receptive of healing magic allowing the organ to heal quickly. It does bleed a lot though.

After eating lunch and helping to sort the medicine stocks I procured some more food for later, my appetite has almost doubled from the extra exertion. I will also need more meat to repair my muscle’s soreness.

Once stocked up I left to continue training with the sword and running the Calbin hill. I feel more acquainted with the training today, my awkward sword handling from yesterday is mostly gone.

When nightfall arrived, I confirm a noticeable change in my body while washing in the bathroom. I was always lean, there was enough work around that I could not gain much weight. So, as I washed my arms and legs I can see the muscles here are becoming more firm I am gaining muscle and in a fast rate.

Normally I would expect it to take over a week, it is very likely that I am accelerating the muscle’s growth by repairing the damage from training, which should take a few days. When I first was swinging an axe to chop firewood in Ferrel I was sore for at least two days, it was hard to count when I was chopping logs almost every day.

It did take a week before my arms could properly adjust but that was the body’s normal healing rate. Even the skin on my hands and feet, which were blistering are quickly thickening as I drain the blister and heal the damaged skin. It seems that after magically reattaching the layers the skin adds more thickness in response. The same can be said with my muscles bulking.

On the fourth day of training I race up Calbin hill without having to crawl to the top! The only problem I encounter is that I become completely out of air. My heart is beating so hard it hurts. If my muscles can be strengthened through magic repairs, then using my healing magic on my heart, which is a form of muscle, should strengthen it.

Finding the heart is easy, I know where hearts are on animals when I helped my Father butchering, yet, I have never had to perform any healing work on someone’s heart. Death happens quickly after taking damage to the heart, like a major artery, only much quicker. Like a penetrating blow to the head, the heart is considered one of the two, sure to kill, vital points.

I continue this training regime for another three days.

During these days I take notice of Calbin’s defenses as they grow. The wooden towers are constructed within the southern field and soil is being dug to make the northern approach steeper at the point where the wooden palisade is built.

Injuries continue to arrive, with most during the mornings as patrol activity calms down by noon. The patrols do not take very long to find Koblins and Goblins in the woods as the siege tightens around the woods.

One of the disturbing things I found out is that the patrols are butchering meat from the monsters they kill. It takes a few weeks to dry and cure the meat before anyone would want to eat it. The monster jerky began to be served as a ration while good meat is restricted.

Apparently I can request some restricted food and drink as a reward for my work. People also notice of me in public, I have a grey temple robe different from the black robes the main priests have.

However, no one really bothers me with favours, I would hear them whisper to each other that I look too exhausted from work and I should be left to rest. I would be exhausted from my own training regime after temple work, well, I do not mind being left alone.

Some of the things people wanted me to help with sounded either silly or impossible.

I cannot heal physical or abnormal defects, Someone who cannot see the colour red is out of my expertise of treatment. The housing situation in Calbin has also resulted in many people living in close proximity of each other. Sickness is spreading and faelin does not work on many of these ailments.

I spend some more time writing notes in my notebook. Aside from recording my feedback from experimenting with ideas from the theory text I own I also recorded other information. Most of this has to do with plants and I marked an area of the notes containing my observations and findings.

The other section of notes I frequent records information about the body and what I have observed so far. I record some of the new rumours on the spreading sickness. It causes a cough and sinus pain, over time the sickness may move down the throat for the lungs. If it arrives in the lungs it can become a big issue, causing fluid to build up inside the lungs.

From my limited observations I get the feeling that the sickness spreads through a miasma accumulating in the lung’s fluids, the cough spreads the sickness around through the air. Living in a packed room means more can spread.

Fortunately, the sickness ultimately causes fever, something that grincer works well again; however, this is treating the symptoms and not the sickness.

When the week has passed, Arga paid me another visit as I finished work at the temple. He finds me shortly after I arrive at the training yard.

“Good to see you’re still working at it.” Arga says as he approached, “Hmm? I get the feeling you grew a little.”

“Yup, I’ve can to roll down my robe a little.” I felt some pride in that.

Since the robe is a larger size than I, the sleeves and the lower part of the robe had some bone pins used to fold these parts up to keep it from dragging. I can adjust it as I grow. I do also have a larger appetite and this training may have helped to stimulate a growth spurt.

“I also healed my sore muscles during training, which helps them grow faster as well.” I added.

Arga’s face became a little puzzled, he came closer and felt my shoulders, then my arms. His appearance became more distorted before he finally laughed.

“Hahaha… wow, I’ve heard of some healers using magic to boost someone’s training. But I guess if it is you then you would have no problems doing it yourself.”

“Is it weird?”

“Well… no, it is just considered a waste to use that much mana to fix some sore muscles. You did say some weird things a week ago about, focusing your mana use to heal with less mana. I guess that is why.”

“Muscles are bundles of strands that tear during strain, which are…”

“Okay, I don’t need the details.”

Arga paused for a moment before he continues.

“You know I was being sarcastic about you healing yourself while you trained?”

“It was a good suggestion. After I tired my arms by striking the trees with the wooden sword I would run up Calbin hill.”

“Well now, that is a good idea.” Arga replied, a vile smile crept across his face, “Our new recruits will love it. I normally bring them to this yard for sparing practice but I usually don’t force them to run much. I really should, it builds speed and endurance.”

Arga walks over to the barrel filled with wooden practice swords, he pulls two out and tosses me one of them. I reach out to grab it but it bounces off of my hand before I can grab it. When I pick it up from the grass Arga now holds his up and began to speak.

“The sword was introduced recently to the Mirts. Dvaren nomads traveled in from the east and taught us Mirts how to forge iron and steel. The sword can be thrust to pierce through flesh like a spear.”

Arga demonstrates this by raising his arms up with the sword’s handle held by both hands. He twists his arms and held the handle close to his head over his right shoulder. From this pose, his sword points ahead.

“From this position, if I thrust my sword forward, the point of my blade will pierce through whatever I hit. This pose allows me to draw more strength from my muscles. If I just thrust with my arms, it will be weak. However, when I use my shoulders, back, and hips I can pack more power behind the thrust.”

His demonstration easily shows that twisting the body into his thrust makes his thrust faster. It gave the impression of being a fierce strike with strong killing intent.

Arga raised his sword again but the point is raised high above his head pointing to the sky.

“I showed you the thrust. however, downward attack is always stronger than an upward one. This Raised stance allows me to easily strike downwards; however, it telegraphs my strike. Anyone can tell my attack will be a downward swing. I can put a lot of strength using my arms, back, and legs.”

Arga brought his sword down with a powerful swing, the air around the swing makes a deep whistle sound.

“The problem you can encounter here is when you want to recover from your swing. If you do not kill your opponent or your blade is stuck inside their corpse another opponent can attack.”

Arga raised his sword again, “So, you can change the direction of your strike during your swing.”

Arga demonstrates this by doing the same raised swing; however, he twisted his arms and hips to bring the swing to come from the right. Then he repeats it and changes the attack to come from the left.

“Of course, these are all high strikes, a low strike comes from your hips and knees before you can draw strength from your back and shoulders to raise the strike up.”

Arga’s demonstration of this begins by holding the sword’s handle by his hip as his blade aimed toward the ground behind him.

Twisting his hips and raising his knees aims the attack as his back and shoulders follow through with the attack.

“Lastly, you can combine these high and low strikes. After a high strike, you pull the sword into your hip and throw a low strike, then pull the sword to your shoulder to throw a high strike again.”

Arga gestures towards me, I raised my practice sword up. Arga walks close and taps my legs. I adjust my stance, he looks over my legs again and taps my left foot. I straightened it. He glances at my arms and he pulls on them with his hands to adjust where they held.

“You want a good stance to put your strength through the strike. It should be clean and flow without resistance.”

I practice a few swings before Arga interruptes, “We’ll do some sparring, if I have time I’ll spar with you. It would be bad if one of our best healers can’t defend himself.”

Arga turns to face me, he held his sword at his hip, but raised it towards me. It is not a stance he showed earlier. I decide to raise my sword to follow through what I was taught. Arga charged forward, in an instant he had lowered his sword and made a powerful slash into the right side of my stomach.

I can feel in that moment my feet are lifted from the ground, the air left my lungs and I almost black out. I collapse on the ground, gasping for air, my side hurts and my legs feel numb.

“Well, doing something unexpected helps. If you aim for a high strike, I can enter in with a low strike. Holding your weapon at waist height allows you to react and change what you will do.”

I slowly manage to pull myself back on my feet to continue and spar with Arga. The result is pretty bad for me, even if I manage to catch his strikes with my own sword, he twists his own blade and parries mine out of the way.

By doing this I felt it teaches by doing rather than by explaining. Arga fights by telegraphing his moves intentionally to appear one way and then changes what he will do moments before his attack.

If I anticipate this and try to guard against the change, he continues through with this attack without making the change. It is a deceptive style, he even demonstrates that holding the sword in a way to hide the tip of the blade behind the head or body will prevent the opponent from grasping the range of the weapon.

If I can keep out of Arga’s range he will be unable to attack, forcing him to run forward. He is very good at closing the distance and he starts the spar at a distance outside of his range.

“When you face opponents who mostly use a ranged weapon like a bow you need to close the distance in as short of time as possible. Or else you cannot fight a skirmishing enemy who breaks contact from you.” Arga pointed out.

I am also shorter which means my arms are not long enough to beat Arga’s range. Whenever he gave me an opening to swing in his direction he just steps back and avoids my attack.

Eventually, we spar long enough that I use all my mana mending the bruises and sore muscles.

“Good work for your first time, that recovery ability is something I envy. But having the will to let me pummel you longer is worth reward. I’ll treat you at the pine.” Arga commented as he gathered the two sticks to return to the barrel.

There are many mercenaries in this Inn’s dining area, it is a popular spot because the mercenary building is next door and the Inn provides good service. Since I have been staying here for over a week I finally read the Inn’s name instead of referring to it as the Inn next to the Mercenaries.

The Inn’s entrance sign I never bothered to read before calls the place the growing pine. Arga referred to the Inn as The Pine, or at least the dining hall and tavern part took on the name.

People other than mercenaries come by the pine; however, it is generally considered a mercenary dining hall. Those staying at the Inn and the surrounding houses are also regular patrons at the pine.

Arga and I take seats at a table joined by some of Arga’s mercenary companions.

“I saw you sparing with the kid today.” One of the mercenaries said to Arga, “Did you go easy on him?”

“Nope, but Kordi here is a damn good healer, patches his bruises up in short order and keeps going.” Arga replied, his hand pats the top of my dirty head.

“What, now that seems pretty hard to believe, if he can fix himself like that then he’d be pretty darn tough in a fight.”

“Well, he can’t use a lot of mana at one time so the healing takes time. He’s just got some good skill with what he can do. But in a long fight, he’ll keep recovering his mana and his wounds. So, I’m getting him used to fighting someone who will aim to take him down quick.”

Some of the mercenaries look towards me with surprise before they turn back to each other to discuss their opinions.

“Yea, if you fight a skirmisher, they will always try to separate from you before you can gain an advantage. They aim for winning the long endurance fight by adding up their damage over time.”

“A healer who can consistently maintain his group’s condition is far more important than a healer who can do more but needs a lot of rest.”

“How long do you take to recover your mana?” a mercenary asked me.

“One or two hours depending on how rested I am.” I replied, their eyes opened.

“Seriously!?”

“What is your flow like?” a mercenary from the next table asked me, he has a staff type weapon made of sithril. He is a magic specialist.

“Pretty small.” I answered.

“Hey, what’s that flow again?” another mercenary asked.

The magic mercenary replied, “If you compare the same magic cast by two different mages, the one who can make the largest is considered to have the greater mana flow. He can draw more out at once. By increasing the flow, you can exceed your normal mana recovery rate by such an amount that it would take a day to fully recover.”

“Oh, if his flow is low, he recovers quickly?”

“Not always, you can train your flow to bring out more mana at once; you can train to expand your reserve of mana so you cannot blow all your mana at once; and you can train your mana recovery rate.”

Arga chipped in, “Now that you bring that up, Kordi mentioned he trained his Focus, or whatever, which seems to make him much better at using his mana.”

“Oh really? I’ve heard of experienced mages who try to exceed their flow limits by trying to focus their control over mana. Generally the old Elvamirts show any noticeable results. How do you train your focus over mana Kordi?” the magic mercenary turned to me.

I take the mug of water I had and I focus on drawing out a few drops of water to twirl around. The mercenary mage’s mouth almost fell open, the other mercenaries are also impressed.

They asked the mage, “Hey, can you do that?”

“No… there is no way I can do that. When you learn spell casting, you have to establish instructions and commands. With large magic spells you need to do that to control it; however, small magic is possible to control through voiceless commands and even just thoughts and images.”

The mage held up his chin with his right hand, “This precision is something that I have never seen before, how did you learn it.”

“No one taught me, I just played around with it. You said that thoughts and images can control it. If I understand the properties of something like water, I can control it a lot more.”

I continue to elaborate.

“If we take liquid oil from this lamp on the table and compare it to water, the oil acts differently.”

I take a utensil and dip it into the lamp’s oil while my left hand hold another utensil to dip into my mug of water. When I draw them out, only the water on the utensil is able to form a droplet before dropping down. The water that fell on the table forma a small dome while the oil spread around.

“You can see the water drop tries to cling together while the oil spreads. That is a unique property of water, I can easily clump it into a ball and move around. I train my control through both practice and understanding.”

The mercenary mage began to chuckle to himself, “I can’t believe a child just taught me something so advanced. I guess not being taught like the rest of us gave you a different approach.”

“I did read a theoretical book on magic and spent a lot of time testing its claims.”

While I engage the Mercenary Mage in talks about magic, Arga and his other companions decide to have their own conversation.

The Mercenary Mage is named Doore Sithrin. He identified himself as being a part of the Sithrin branch family. I inquired about his family and he tells me about some of his heritage. The Sithrin family dominates a large portion of the sithril production in the north.

This came to be after the union between the old sithril families of the Boroa and Lenta jointly took on the name Sithrin. The Boroa family was a larger group of Kridimirts who established some of the first sithril smelters in their lands.

The Lenta family originated through Ordumirt descent and gradually married with Kridimirt neighbours. The Lenta were less advanced but held more knowledge to produce higher quality sithril. However, the Boroa family held influence along major trade routes earning greater wealth.

When the Boroa began to stockpile the Lenta sithril, merchants sought out the Boroa family for trade weakening the Lenta. Conflict eventually resulted in a few small battles.

In the end, the Boroa held the advantage; however, the local governments established a decree to form a union between the two families. This choice was made to fix the conflict’s sithril shortage.

By now, the Sithrin family has one main house and many branch families associated to the main family and not directly influential. Doore is part of a branch that tries to produce skilled mages. The family’s access to sithril makes it easy to equip their mages; however, skill and experience is needed for possible conflicts in the future.

The Kainran Mercenaries receive a lot of their funding through the Sithrin family to secure trade, mining deeds, etc.

I grow sleepy during our long conversation and wish Doore and Arga a good night. I wipe myself clean to get ready for bed, I decide to dig out the text on magic theory and my own notebook. I want to update it with some of my new findings before sleeping.

I have learned a lot from my work in the temple, the training, and conversations with Doore. As I update my notes on magic I am able to expand the and review the content. I fill in more notes on the structure of muscles and how they work. Healing work on muscles has helped fill in a lot of the blanks I originally had.

I still have lingering feelings that there is a lot more to how the muscles work that I am not aware of right now. For example, how do they contract. I do know that the contraction goes along the direction of the muscle fibers. So the fibers shorten.

I can feel the muscle vibrate as it tries to maintain its contraction, this strongly suggests that the muscle fibers pull itself shorter like hands pulling a rope. Or a sheath over the fiber that pulls the inner fiber into the sheath. When the muscle is overexerted, the pulling forces slip as it tries to pull against the strong force against its contraction.

The other thing I am curious about is how the muscle is triggered to contract the muscle. This seemed a little easier to figure out, all it took was for me to rub against some fur and touch something else.

The sound of a snap is heard and a prick of pain surges through my finger. In the dark, I can see small flashes, like miniature lightning. One of the sensations I feel is my muscles would twitch if the spark happened near them.

I regularly encounter static with all the fur around and I had thought about this before. Now that I was investigating muscles I decide to try and create the same thing with magic. The magic theory text did talk about lightning and static sparks; however, there were no known ways to generate it as the primary effect of magic.

There are instances where powerful storm magic can generate lightning. All of the observations seemed to settle on the idea that static and lightning formed when there was some kind of friction between different surfaces. The difference between surfaces interested me so, I tried a quick experiment.

I gathered mana in my hands, rubbed them together and pulled them apart. Nothing happened. I think that nothing happened because my hands are both part of me, the is nothing really different between my hands.

In an attempt to create that difference, I focus mana mostly into one hand while I try to empty mana in the other. This is a pretty weird attempt for me, emptying mana from the body is not something I have done before. I try anyway, even if I cannot tell if it is working.

Rubbing my two hands together should create the force needed to separate whatever the static is and bring more into one hand. As I pull my hands slightly apart nothing happens. With disappointment I release my mana focus.

SNAP!

A painful spark cracked between my hands, it worked, this static seemed to cling to mana in a similar way I could use water to transfer medicine. I have no idea how useful this will be, it does hurts a lot and I do can only create it between my hands.

I am also exhausted at this point, it is very late in the night.

When I wake up, it is snowing outside. The cold winds blowing from the mountains brought dark clouds and a lot of snow. Conversations in the Pine about the patrols mention that the koblin and goblin raiders are not making any moves, the heavy snow limits their movements.

The priests at the temple do not have any work for me. I asked if the siege would lessen with the heavy snowfall; they tell me that the snow will only encourage attacks later to raid our food storages. It seems the Koblins are more active in the winter, as they run out of forage foods they begin to raid farmers.

Because I was out of work for the day I feel little lost on what I should do, I can try to train in the snow. As I walk past the mercenary building wondering if I should see if Arga has something for me to do, I notice the forge across the road is hard at work.

I walk close to see what they are doing, the workers are making bricks to expand the number of furnaces available. I knew earlier that there were charcoal furnaces being built in the southern Calbin field, these are fed chopped wood to be cooked into charcoal.

The charcoal is used as fuel while and as an ingredient to make iron and steel. I am curious to find out some more, the forge back home in Ferrel Valley just repaired tools of mostly bronze and copper. I approach the forge smith who is overseeing some of the construction of one furnace, he notices me approach and spoke.

“What is it?”

“I have free time, do you need help?”

The smith looked me over before saying, “I guess you can shovel snow.”

Much of the snow was already packed down; however, more snow was falling. Since I have the mana to spare, I used it to scoop the snow away from the area. I gesture with my arms to guide the snow, knocking the snow out of the forge area. There is a roof over the main forge, but the expansion area is not covered. The smith looked at me with a raised brow.

“Okay so, how is a healer who can blow away snow going to help me here.”

I shrug and reply, “I’ve helped to fix and maintain tools at my village before.”

“You forge steel before?” He asked.

“No, just sharpened them with magic.”

“Show me.”

I noticed a worn bronze hatchet on the ground in a pile of worn tools, I pick it up and pinch my fingers along the blade. I focused on heating the metal at first, enough to soften the metal. Then I rub along the blade to mold the edge to sharpen.

The bends and nicks are flattened. When I was done I handed it to the smith who looked it over with curiosity and annoyance. He doubted the kind of work that can be done with only fingers. He ran his finger along the blade and asked, “You heated it with your magic?”

I nodded, “heat softens it, makes it easier to mold.”

“You used mana to shape the metal?”

“It is easier to shape it back into its old form. Going beyond that would require a lot more heat and force.”

The smith nodded, “So, our talented healer knows another trick huh. You want to learn some proper metalworking?”

I nodded in return, “I would be able to do a lot more than just sharpen blades with your guidance.”

“Hrmph! Let’s pour ourselves a new anvil.” he said, uncrossing his arms.

The one furnace running has iron alloy that was poured into a casting of hardened clay earlier It cooled enough by now and the casting is shattered to reveal a new anvil. With the second brick furnace nearly completed there will be two anvils and two furnaces. Three of each are planned to improve the forge’s output to arm Calbin’s defense with weapons and armour.

The smith of the forge, whose name is Laro, learned to smelt steel from a passing band of Dvaren refugees. While the band taught Laro, it was just the common basics of refining iron and working carbon into the iron to strengthen it into steel.

Laro explained much of this while the two of us work on the second furnace; Laro took advantage of my magic skill in manipulating clay to accelerate its construction. By the end of the day I have had little time available to mend the soreness in my body, I spent too much mana on the construction of the third furnace and a third anvil caste.

My normal routine the next morning has been altered by the snowstorm, its passing left enough snow on the roads that I can just see over the top from the ground. Snow is crystallized water that forms around a lot of air, which makes it so fluffy. Moving this is easy if I use both wind and water manipulation at the same time.

I can blast enough snow to make a path while depositing the snow on the sides. I did not want to exhaust my mana so soon,because the patrols were sent out earlier. The storm ended before the sun rose and the scouts want to keep track of the goblin and koblin activity early.

While I cleared aside the snow along the road I made sure to clear out some of the forge. Laro started his work to finish up the last furnace while I made my way to the temple.

I clear a path along the way while I notice a few people wearing a mesh of twigs woven together to spread out their weight from each step. This allows the wearer to walk on top of snow without sinking through. I do not have any snowshoes, so I made a path between the Inn I am staying at and the temple.

Most of the activity outside is people shoveling snow, the snow from yesterday that was cleared needed to be cleared again. The overnight snow is not too deep and stands at about my knees while the snow banks along paths stands the highest.

With the combination of temple work, sparring, and smith assistance I make mental plans to keep myself busy. The smith work will be interesting, I want to learn more about sithril in particular. My sithril bracelet is already very useful and if I can make more myself I will save a lot of billets.

There is a small trail of blood leading into temple, after opening the doors I enter to see what I can do. The building is silent as I observe the three priests standing together with a man covered in snow stained with blood. Before them is a body, lifeless and still.

Patyr notices me with a gloom expression. He walks closer to me and speaks in a low voice.

“Arrow wound to his neck, he bled out moments before entering the temple. We tried to use healing magic to stimulate more blood but his mind had faded too much.”

When a body loses blood, the mind becomes faded, too much loss and the mind becomes unconscious. However, it is possible to recover through magic unless the mind crosses the point of no return. At this point, it is believed the mind and spirit cross into the afterlife.

Much like drowning or suffocating, if air can be delivered there is a chance someone unconscious will recover.

“Without the mind, his spirit has wandered.” Patyr summarized.

The funeral rites may vary depending on the deceased’s deity of choice. For those who live a dangerous life, they often carry a talisman. This talisman is said to guide the spirit in place of the mind so it may find peace with their deity.

This man has no talisman, a sign that he wishes his spirit to wander the realm beyond life. This is not always a bad thing, Mirts have a long history of being nomads. The Mirts who settle onto land also bind themselves to the local deities while many mirts who remain more nomadic are attracted to exploring what lies beyond.

My own family favours this belief, they recently settled into Ferrel and my parents explained to me that beyond life a spirit can reunite with those it truly wishes to.

For the funeral at hand, the deceased is an adventurer who only has friends in Calbin. Burials do not usually happen in the winter so, it will be prepared for cremation by nightfall. Night is seen as a time when the realm beyond as the night sky opens the way.

I spend my time in the temple on hand to help with any injuries, this provides me some down time each day to work on other things. I had begun to use the temple’s basement to begin brewing potions with a variety of ingredients.

There is a supply of clay and glass bottles that are unused along with pots and barrels. Among my experiments I categorize the fermented brews between sour and strong. Sour brews ferment to produce vinegar while strong brews produce liquor. It will take at least two weeks for a batch to fully ferment and at least a week has passed for many of my batches.

I decide to go over them and see if any have failed so far. Out of all of my batches the most common recipes use grincer and faelin. This is inspired by the ailment cure the temple generally makes. Instead of just drying the grincer and faelin, mixing it into a potion will preserve the medicines while allowing it to be quickly consumed for its effect.

The changes I made to the recipe involve extracting the medicinal juice from each by using hot water and magic. After removing the solid material depleted of medicine I make a paste of cooked corro nuts that add sweetness to the mixture. The oils in the nut help to absorb and prevent the medicine from settling apart. In one batch I even mix in the whites of chige eggs to help suspend the mixture.

By doing so, larger bottles can be used without worrying that the best part of the potion settled on the bottom. Small bottles designed to be consumed right away are difficult to make with current glass production. Clay also cannot be easily made into such small containers.

The fermentation will either produce vinegar or liquor or liquor if the right yeast is added. By doing so, the potion becomes preserved and will not spoil. However, the taste is pretty bad. The corro nuts help to improve the taste a little but the longer it stays the more its sweetness is consumed by the fermentation.

This is why I have multiple different variations of recipes in separate containers. I marked some of these with the amount of salt I added and others have flavourful herbs and spices mixed in. I know from eating some pickled foods that there are herbs that go well with vinegar fermented foods.

With the liquors, I am not as concerned. I plan to distil them before infusing the flavour and medicine in. I do have a few alternative liquor brews that use different food for the yeast. Corro nuts, tubers, grains, and fruits work well to feed the yeast.

Aside from these medicinal potion experiments I found the temple’s stockpile of rain weed and pinch. I have a few batches of blue rain weed potions to stimulate mana recovery and yellow pinch potions to stimulate stamina recovery and reduce weariness.

The other plant I found in good stock the temple made potions with is called Blood Leaf. These grow very well along rivers, I read that the field needs to be partially flooded during the spring to properly establish the plant. Once it is established it grows a cylinder of leaves that turn blood red when ripe.

While blood leaf can provide a boost to the body’s natural healing ability, making it into a potion greatly improves its effect. In fact, I began using corro nuts because it was the unique ingredient that blood leaf potions use in the Corro Valley. The nut oils absorb the blood leaf juices that digest into the body quickly.

I take this a step further and use hot water and magic to extract these ingredients in a more pure state. Thus, my potions are very clear. The only problem is that these potions have a short lifespan before spoiling. So, I plan to use the alcohol I am brewing to make a few batches of preserved Blood Leaf potions. I can also mix in a little Pinch flower concentrated juice as a pick up.

Because we are still under siege, I do not have the variety or luxury to go too wild with experiments, I read some books in the temple to gather inspiration for these potion ideas. I would not have tried egg whites if I did not read about it in a book.

While I spent most of my time in the temple basement there were four new injuries which are fortunately not fatal. My work on these wounds is quick, I investigate the the internal damage and specifically heal it. The patient is usually given a small drink of Blood Leaf potion before being by the priests.

The combined effect of the Blood Leaf and healing is amplified so, they combine the two whenever they can. Blood Leaf itself is produced in large quantities but it is purchased primarily by large groups for healing. Hence why I have rarely seen it before.

By noon the patrol activity slows down and I am free to do whatever. I take extra food rations after eating lunch and I walk to the training yard. If Arga is not there, I would see the smith again and see if I can learn about metals some more.

The paths are almost completely clear of snow that is piled along the sides and on top of the roofs. The sun is not covered by clouds anymore, its light reflects on the snow and I spend most of my walk squinting. When I arrive at the training yard my eyes have adjusted to the brightness outside, the temple basement is considerably darker.

I find Arga standing in the field, before him lay a dozen men and women collapsed on the ground and moaning. The sound of my feet against the snow alerts Arga, he sees me over his shoulder and says.

“Wonderful day Kordi!”

“Hello Arga.” I reply while I take another look at the moaning people.

“Oh,” He notices this, “I ran these recruits up the hill to break a fresh trail to the hilltop.”

He pointed to the hill, I can actually see where the snow has been trampled by dozens of feet.

“Do they need help?” I asked.

“How generous of you.” Arga exaggerated to his recruits, “The great surgeon Kordi is going to make your pain go away.”

He looks my way again, “If it is alright with you.”

“It will be good practice.”

I place my bag down and start from the left, they are all lined up in order until their legs gave underneath themselves. The first person is a woman ordumirt, she wore simple leather pants and a silk shirt. There is a pile of clothing nearby, I assume that everyone worked up a sweat and had to take a few layers off.

“May I see your legs?” I ask.

She is a cautious from confusion, everyone here recognizes my robe as being a healer but few healers will actually heal sore muscles. I move my hands from the thighs down to the ankle to repair the muscles and tendons.

Her expression became lively as she moves her legs around.

“It worked, my legs feel better!”

“Woah!” the others exclaimed.

I turn to Arga and asked, “Should I heal blisters too?”

“Oh, I had them pop those already.” He answers.

“What! We didn’t need to?” the recruits lamented between each other.

Arga began to scold some of the dissenters while I moved on to the next recruit. Of the twelve, four are women, eight are men. All twelve are Ordumirts, the number of Kridimirts I have seen in Calbin are almost countable by my hands.

I reach the end of the line and turn to Arga, the treatment did not take very long and the recruits are in high moral. Arga glares their way with a sinister smile.

“Well, with that much energy you can certainly run the hill a few more times.”

The recruits are overcome with horrorified expressions.

“But. You promised!”

“Yea, you said no more hill for the day.”

Arga folded his arms.

“You are right, I need to send you for your afternoon training to the archery range, I’d hate for you to be unable to walk there.”

They show relief at the news and hurried off before Arga changes his mind.

“Well, its just you and me now.”

I turn to Arga, he is fishing out practice swords while speaking.

“We have begun training some of the locals to bolster the number of militia.”

He passes one of the swords to me, I watch it as the sword draws close before I grab it in the air. The trick I found is to not put my hand in the way but to swipe and grab at the right time.

I hold my sword close to the middle of my body, ready to react to Arga’s changing attacks. He dashed ahead and swung his sword aiming for my head. I have been able to see that he telegraphs his attacks using some of his muscles. While his attack reaches its target, he uses his reserve muscles to change the direction.

In this attack, his legs and forearms telegraph the attack is aimed to my head. I raise my sword to force his next move. His shoulders and torso launch into action and the attack impacts into my liver. I only had enough time to react by tightening the abdominal muscles. However, Arga’s attack knocks the air out of me and I fly back onto the snow.

“What are you doing?”

I hear a voice of someone familiar. I raise myself up against the pain in my side. Arga is facing a Kridimirt woman, Esken. She is not wearing her steel plate armour and has a fur coat on with leather leggings. Her sword is sheathed to a belt.

“Knight Esken I believe, this would be the first time we really meet.”

“Lead Mercenary Arga, do you have a good reason to cripple one of our healers?”

Arga opened his arms while shaking his head. He smiled before replying.

“Kordi is quite capable of mending such bruises.”

“That sounds like a waste of mana, he needs it for healing wounded.” Her piercing eyes locked onto Arga.

“The last time I sparred with him I struck him over a hundred times, he wastes little mana healing these kinds of injuries. He’s been runnin’ around training all week.”

Esken’s glare locks onto me and asks.

“Have you healed the pain in your side?”

I had began treating the strike to my liver while She was talking with Arga so, I nod to confirm and stand on my feet.

Esken takes a few steps towards me and holds her right hand towards Arga, he passes his practice sword to her. She catches it and holds it in her hands with a firm grip. I raise my own to match her and she darts forward, like Arga, to close the gap.

Her body telegraphs an attack to my right side, a liver blow again. I raise my sword handle up to my shoulder while I twist the wooden blade down. This is a blocking form I learned last sparring session to brace for a strong blow.

I expect Esken to change her attack’s direction; however, she lunges in full force into my guard. My sword is pushed in against my arm, I try to hold my guard; however, the impact from her strike folds my guard in. Her attack angles upwards and I am launched from my feet to fall on my back.

Just before I hit the snow packed ground I tuck my head bring my left shoulder down on the ground first. Landing this way allows me to spring my body to roll back onto my feet.

I hear Arga whistle, I look up to see where Eskan stands, she did not move from where I was launched. She knocked me a solid seven paces away and began to close the distance. This time, her swing is going to be a high swing as she raises her sword above her head.

I raise my guard up and her swing crashes down breaking my guard to impact into my right shoulder. The force drops me to my knees as pain spikes through my shoulder. Esken withdrawals, when I try to raise my right arm the pain in my shoulder stops me.

I feel the injury with my left hand, the sensation tells me one of my collar bones cracked. I begin to mend it while Esken watches, she stands before me with her sharp expression as if she is observing what I am doing.

The small bone fracture is healed and I mend some of the bruises around the impact area. I stand again to show I finished.

“I can see why you received such a glowing recommendation. So, do you want to get stronger?” She asked.

“Umm, I do.

I do not really know how to respond to that question. In response Eskan’s expression became firm.

“Just going with it huh? I do not feel enough resolve from you.”

“Sorry.”

I again, cannot respond, I have no idea what I need resolve for. If I work hard then things get better. That was how I have lived so far.

“Well, it is fine for now.” Arga said, joining into the conversation.

Esken glared his way, “Without real resolve, when he hits a limit he will not be able to overcome it.”

“Yeah. Until then, we can beat in him the strength he will need for whatever resolve he does find.” Arga replied with that sinister smile of his.

Esken turned her glare back to me, the two of them give me horrible chills. I may end up seeing the realm beyond life after this.

Author's notes:

RIP Kordi.

Well, Kordi is a hard worker and I don't dislike someone having no Dream or Goal. But that does not mean the other character's can't be annoyed by it. >=]