„Healing, spells – a group of various spells, with beneficial effects, belonging to the Domain of Healing Life, damn, we should hire a cleric to write about this stuff! and the School of Evocation? Or was it Conjuration? No, it’s Necromancy, you feebleminded idiot! Manipulation of the lifeforce is within limits of that school! You must suffer from dementia, you old lich! Necromancy is supposed to be evil, healers are good, they can’t be necromancers, it’s absurd! Ha, check it next time when some cleric tries to bring you back from the dead, just what is he gonna do, Conjure you? Guys, it’s supposed to be the encyclopaedia, stop polluting articles in each new revision!

While the exact classification of those spells remains one of the mysteries of the universe, their effects are easier to research. Effects and limitations of those spells are depending on their circle.

For the 'Mend Wounds' – spell effects per circle as casted by clerics and paladins:

1st – knots most external wounds, mends simple fractures (usually 1 per cast), chance to knot internal wounds (30% chance). Cured wounds may still be infected if not attended.

2nd – removes lesser burns, mends multiple fractures of a single bone per cast, knots most internal wounds (70% chance); chest/abdomen wounds may still need further surgical interventions and may still be infected.

Able to reattach recently lost fingers (~70% within the first minute, chance lessen by 10% with every passing minute), chance to reattach foot or hand (~30% within the first minute, chance lessen by 10% with every passing minute), ears (~ 10% within the first minute), a slightly higher chance to attach extremities cleanly severed.

3rd – cures massive burns, heals most wounds without leaving scars, internal wounds don’t have to be attended afterwards, able to fix most fractures at once. Restores minuscule amounts of lost blood (appx. 771 – the spell actually fastens blood production rate by the subject’s body, effectiveness is greatly reduced in malnourished subjects, consecutive recasts without nourishing might even result in a death)

Able to reattach recently lost fingers (~70% within 10 minutes, chance lessen by 10% every 5 minutes), foot, hand or ear (~50% within 10 minutes, chance lessen by 10% every 5 minutes), ears (~ 10% within the first minute).

4th – increased overall effectiveness.

Able to reattach a recently lost foot, hand or ear (~90% within 10 minutes, chance lessen by 10% every 10 minutes), limb (~50% within 1 minute, chance lessen by 10% with every passing minute).

5th – increased overall effectiveness. Blood seems to be recreated not only by increasing target’s body production rate but also by direct conversion of a caster's mana into it.

Able to reattach a recently lost limb (~70% within 10 minutes, chance lessen by 10% every 10 minutes), foot, hand or ear (success rate of 99% within first 2 hours), chance to fix an eye destroyed by damage (~50% within 10 minutes, chance lessen by 10% every 10 minutes)

6th – increased overall effectiveness. ~99% success rate when reattaching limbs and smaller body parts within first 2 hours. A chance to fix an eye: ~70% within the first hour.

7th – greatly increased overall spell effectiveness. Enables regrowth of any lost body part.

Bards, having an ability to slightly reshape the fabric of reality with their music and innate skills, may be able to heal wounds with a slightly lesser effectiveness than clerics – probably due to the lack of a divine support.

Spells casted by druids (and rangers, to some degree), drawing from the essence of nature, have a lesser initial effect but are restoring the subjects over an extended period of time, also affecting the wounds which were applied after the spell was casted. The effectiveness of those spells is also increased when used on various animals and monsters.

It has been confirmed that some mages, with extensive knowledge in the anatomy of certain species, are able to heal it, albeit with a much lesser effectiveness when comparing to spells cast by clerics; often having to use larger amounts of mana to achieve a similar effect – detailed results of the research in appx. 153.”

- the excerpt from ‘Encyclopaedia Arcana – H’

Ionathan, over following months, managed to learn a quite wide array of spells – only of a 1st circle and cantrips, but nonetheless, as he was technically only studying by himself, his progress would amaze many wizards.

He also had his first spellbook now – or, to be more specific it was just a bunch of parchments tied by him together on the side to allow opening; books sold in shops were quite pricey.

As Ion knew more spells now, on evenings he had to decide which of them he would like to cast during the next day – he found out, that even if he ‘knew’ all of them, that certain part of his mind, or maybe his soul, which was responsible for casting and altering reality using mana could currently hold only as much as six different spell patterns at ready to be cast (not including cantrips).

That phenomenon, as he learned from his visions, was familiar to mages, and their limits increased as they trained. Also, even if one was able to relatively easily ‘shift’ frequently used spells during the meditation from the part of mind just knowing them to the one casting, rarely used spells were slowly fading away from memories – that’s why spellbooks were the most treasured possessions of wizards. Seeing a correct pattern written in the spellbook also facilitated spell preparation, as wizards called that process.

Ion's usual choice of spells was Magic Missile, Feather Fall, Disguise (no one will recognise him if something goes wrong!), Shield (not only protects against attacks but also from magic missiles - just in case, he wasn't going to fight with anyone...yet!), Enfeeblement (drains strength from an enemy - seriously, no fighting!) and Fear. He even managed to learn to cast the last one silently, without a chant, only using a hand gesture as the support for sigils he visualised in the mind – from what he knew from his dreams making an omission of a chant was considered quite a feat so he was proud of it.

As for how he trained it, well… starting with Disguise… as long as Ion wasn’t doing anything unusual on the streets and didn’t accidentally bumped against anyone no one should see through his illusion…following by casting Fear on some beggars – at first he felt really awful about using spells on poor people, but then he convinced himself that he is not doing them any harm, it’s only like a little prank.

When he got sure of his abilities he tried it on some thugs; he knew from guards that they were harassing commoners on certain streets – with this he was doing something good, actually helping to maintain an order in the town! His father would be proud of him!

When he was finally able to cast it silently, he started with those who were really guilty; older kids that sometimes tried to harass him when running errands for his uncles; some intimidation about him kicking their asses with his spear followed by this little spell made wonders. They fled so fast…

****

Disguise also opened him doors to taverns, allowing Ion to listen to various stories of travellers and bards.

One day, in one of the inns, he had spotted Aaron making out with a daughter of another merchant. He was almost sure her father was an owner of a bookstore.

They even left for a room upstairs – from what he knew from his dreams that could prove to be a good bargaining chip; maybe they would gift him with a book of his choice if he keeps quiet about their affairs? But Aaron is his cousin, it might be wrong to do something like that…

‘Well, that’s a dilemma for another time, now she’s performing!’ Ion thought as a pretty girl in mid-twenties, wearing a fitting leather armour with a strange looking instrument held in her hands entered the scene.

‘Someone called it a dulcimer when I last saw her performing in this inn a few days ago.’

Ion wasn’t really interested in this girl. He was closing to fifteen years now, even if she was cute, he considered her to be a little too old for him. What really caught his attention was that she was one of those bards who were capable of weaving spells with their songs and music.

So Ion listened as she sang and played, creating images with a small illusion spell. He would be more impressed by her images of battles, of heroes and dragons if not seeing far better illusions created by wizards in his dreams. And just by looking at her images, he could safely say that she had never seen a real dragon with her own eyes.

Yet, as Ion noticed during her previous performance – with many more difficulties back then, it was easier this time! – it all served as a distraction.

In fact, while she played, she was weaving a far more subtle spell with her music, the spell of which he could almost catch glimpses, suggesting some of the more wealthy patrons gathered near the scene to grab some small coins from their pockets and hand them to girl's companion walking between them.

'Help this poor, little travelling artist,' pleaded the spell.

And even if it seemed as if she could only affect a single person at the time, it was still enough – many people who hadn’t been affected also followed suit and gave some coins to the man's hat.

The most important part of their plan, however, were three inconspicuous women and man who were taking the advantage of the crowded space; they were pickpocketing some of the patrons – as they now knew where they were hiding their pockets.

During a spectacle, Ion had to leave two or three times for a moment, needing to recast his Disguise Self spell, when he felt that its duration was coming to an end.

Once, on the way back, one of the bolder thieves tried to pick his pocket – said pocket was actually part of his illusion spell. Not wanting to attract too much attention as her hand would have passed through it, he sent her angry gaze and casted Fear – the thief changed direction instantly. Even if he wasn’t going to inform anyone that they were stealing, as he wanted to ask the bard to share her magic knowledge with him, Ion wouldn’t allow them to try to steal from him; a matter of principles.

To be honest it wasn't actually possible to rob him now; Ion already spent all coins he took with him on few ales; the innkeeper apparently didn’t want those not ordering anything inside his tavern. And he couldn’t even drink ordered beverages as his illusory mouths were around 15 centimetres above his real ones – he made himself seem taller with the illusion. Such a waste!

As soon as the bard finished her performance she left the inn, cheerfully waving to the crowd. Ion followed her shortly after, hoping to ask his questions.

He stepped out of the inn and wondered in what direction the bard might have gone. A drunken man left shortly after, swaying on his way and collided with Ion in front of tavern’s door. He mumbled something, not even noticing partially passing through his illusory form and moved on down the street.

“Shit, where is my pocket?” he heard the drunkard's voice a little bit further away, as he began to pat himself.

Then he angrily looked around. His eyes focused on Ion after a while.

“You…you stole it!”

As the man closed in towards the young wizard, Ion casted Fear, hoping to drive the approaching guy away. Yet the spell seemed to have no effect as the enemy took out a dagger and tried to stab him.

Frightened, Ion imagined a sigil for Shield, and for a moment just before thug’s dagger hit him, an almost transparent barrier pop into existence, repelling the weapon.

Taking a chance as his opponent was confused, Ion released two bolts of magical energy as soon as the barrier faded, bruising the brute with them. He followed with a solid kick in the thug’s knee, a move he had learnt from the city guard's trainees. When the man staggered, the wizard casted Magic Missiles again.

After that, the drunkard fell unconscious. Ion had to catch his breath, both due to emotions and because rapidly casting so many spells in short amount of time truly exhausted him.

Shortly after, not wanting to risk another confrontation with a drunkard when he wakes up, he left the place.

When Ion finally returned to uncles' house he decided to take a break from wandering around the city for the next few days…and being grounded by uncles for returning so late hadn’t had anything to do with his decision!

****

During his house arrest, Ion had a lot of time to ponder how should he reveal his great magical talent to the uncles.

One day, when the aunt called him from his room for a dinner, instead of walking down the stairs, he jumped as far and high as he could, and casted Feather Fall, not only slowing his fall, but also allowing him to move further with his jump (in fact he had to duck to not collide with the ceiling).

On the way down he shouted “Aunty Mariana, look at me, I am the GREAT WIZARD!!!” and as she looked at him with her eyes wide open he proceeded by creating dazzling, colourful lights (recently, he had found out how to make a Light cantrip more flashy) to make himself sparkling. Then, not letting his aunty recover, he touched a table and with Prestidigitation turned it into gold (actually just dyeing it for one hour, but don’t spoil the moment).

Afterwards, he looked at his aunt expectantly.

A few seconds passed in silence.

Finally, she managed to ask: “Just who are you? And what happened to Ion?”

“Who am I?” Ion repeated.

He followed by immediately casting Disguise to look like his aunt, wanting to show her an expression of hers.

“Now I’m you!”

Then she fainted.

“Hmm… had I gone overboard? And why only my aunt was here, I wanted to impress everyone...”

At this moment uncle Steven entered the house and called “Ion, we finally received another letter from your father!”

As dumbfounded Steven looked at two Marianas in the room, Ion used this as an opportunity to pick the letter from his hand using a Mage Hand.

He opened it and read loudly:

“Dear son,

I hope you are well, not causing many troubles to your uncles and keeping with your spear training. I will have a spar with you as soon as I return, so be sure to not laze around!

As far as the war goes, we had to split our forces as orcs were scattering whenever they spotted our army. More mobile troops stayed on the countryside trying to fight them off while our main forces marched forward to finally reclaim Fallpoint. Uther knows that recently we've lost far too many soldiers in orcish ambushes, but finally it looks like we are beginning to win this war. We just need to retake Fallpoint, generals are sure that afterwards getting rid of scattered warbands will be simply a matter of time.

This conflict is already taking far too long, and I am afraid that the siege might take a few months as well. I can't wait to see how much you have grown up.

You can surely be proud of you old man, Ionathan! After the battle two weeks ago they raised me to the rank of Colonel, could you believe? I have to deal with nobles more often now. At first, I disliked the thought, you surely know what people say about nobles, but from what I've seen so far, Knight Rodric Cloyde isn’t your typical haughty young master. He makes a really good sparring partner, not to even mention some of his bodyguards. They are some of the best fighters I have ever seen – after returning I will surely have great tips for you!

So if you've been slacking with your training, get back to work immediately! I will surely know!

Loving dad,

Gerard”

Even if it was only a month since his last letter, Ion was glad to find out that his father is still well. However, Gerard's enthusiasm towards sparring with Ion again filled him with a bad premonition; he wasn't sure how well he could fare against his father. And judging by his previous letters, the time he spent in the army allowed him to furbish some rusted skills...

„What is going on here?” Ion's uncle shouted afraid, reaching for a club.

“Well, let me explain…” Ion spoke, dispelling his illusion.