Year 2, Summer, First Month, Second Week.

Mary awkwardly entered the Council Pavilion avoiding eye contact with the 16 Council members sitting on wooden chairs in a semi-circle around a big wooden table. Elder Said kindly offered her some water and told her to sit in one of the chairs facing the Council. Mary nodded and sat on the chair after serving herself a cup of water from a clay jar. Said exchanged a nod with Omero, and continued:

“Dear, we called you here to discuss something… The Council decided to establish a Health Department to care for the healing treatments and general well-being of the villagers. After the deal with the Merchant, we received some life crystals, Karl said they can be used to create healing tools. Also, with magic poisoning and wounded numbers increasing we need some people on it constantly. Since you’ve been studying healing for some time, we decided to invite you to be the Head of the Health Department.”

“Wh... What? Me? I thought the Heads were all adults… How can I lead a department? It’s… I don’t think I am the best person to do it…”

“Dear, who else besides you and me knows anything about healing? We tried to put other young Council members as Heads before, but they were too busy with their own tasks… I know you already have a lot to deal with, but I would help you manage the department until we train more villagers to care for the sick…”

Mary could only blush and try to push the position to another person, but like elder Said pointed, nobody else knew about healing. Mary could only painly accept the position.

Omero was the next to speak.

“Mary, the department would be responsible for other things besides healing… Nutrition, checking on the villagers' health conditions and thinking about solutions for the health problems, like the magic poisoning, but we can slowly deal with those matters later…”

After receiving Omero’s hint, Karl spoke:

“The most pressing matters would be crafting the healing tools… Before deciding on the designs we should discuss the most common and serious problems you experienced when caring for the sick…”

Mary stared at him confused about what she should say. She turned to her teacher for help, but the elder only gave her an encouraging smile.

“Ah… The villagers don’t have strong bodies… Even a cold can keep them sick for weeks, before the hunts we didn’t have many wounded… I think the most common problem is their recovery, is really slow and sometimes they don’t recover…”

Mary’s discomfort was visible through her mumblings and she seemed to have entered a state of depressive self-reflection. However, Karl was already pondering over the information, for his creative mind, a few sentences were enough.

“Hm… From what she said, the tools should focus on supplementing their recovery. With the available crystals, we could craft a few recovery aiding tools, maybe some healing beds… What do you think, elder Said?”

“If you could create something to improve their recovery, the number of sick villagers would definitely decrease…”

Katlyn had an idea and decided to intervene:

“How about creating a mobile tool and train a healer to follow the team?”

The Council members continue to discuss the matter through the morning…

***

“You could try going north, it’s definitely safer than going west…”

Diana stepped closer to clean the breadcrumbs from Karl’s thin growing beard, making him blush and feel awkward. She ignored his response and took another sip from the bowl of soup. The complex taste of the seasoned wind broth spread inside her mouth before she bit the green beans and leaves, bringing a wave of freshness.

“We’ll try that, but I think that pushing towards the forest is unavoidable… If we’re going on with your plan, the experience could also help. Fortunately, there’s a bright side of beasts disappearing from the surroundings, the village is safer…”

“Sure, but our resource consumption is only increasing… We need to push our plans forwards D, we only have two seasons before everything goes to Originless grounds…”

***

Mary walked in front of the Health Department trainees trying to maintain a serious and professional expression. In reality, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but she could only straighten herself and look professional if she wanted to be respected.

“You’ll rotate on the different tasks of the Health Department. Elder Said and I will teach you the basics of taking care of the sick, preparing concoctions and healing teas… Every week, two of you will follow the hunt team to aid them with the wounded, don’t need to be scared, you won’t need to fight and we’ll teach how to deal with the wounds…”

After separating them into two groups, Mary asked one group to follow her into the pavilion assigned for the sick villagers. Then, she walked to every sick villager, explaining their situations and what to do in each case.

“Your first task is to keep them clean, the sick can easily get an infection... Most of the villagers here got sick from exhaustion or heatstroke, but their poor constitution won’t allow them to recover fast. Fortunately, our diet is improving and we have fewer serious cases of bad nutrition… We don’t have many resources, so we need to use them sparingly. If the villager only has a minor condition, we first try to let the villager rest and drink some water, the concoctions and herbal teas are served only in the serious cases…”

***

“We finished!”

Mary almost cried seeing the five healing beds, the stones only needed to be covered with straw and they would ready to use. She marveled at the magnificent drawings one more time before ordering the trainees to bring the straw covers. Soon, five recovering villagers were guided to the beds, while the trainees started placing the energy and life crystals to activate the Arrays.

A scared villager looked suspiciously at the faint white light passing through the straw covers, but his expression soon turned to an excited smile. Apparently, the healing effect could be felt, as he described, a tickling followed by a nice and warm sensation.

The healing bed was the first of three healing tools proposed by Karl. It focused on supporting general recovery through the stimulation of the healing property. The design was simple, but the cost of drawing was a little high because of the Stimulus Rune and the size of the Array that had to be drawn over the entire stone.

The design had four Arrays and one Rune. The Extraction Array to power the tool with an energy crystal, the Combination Array to combine the effects of the Stimulus Rune and the Properties Extraction Array (extracting the healing properties of the life crystal), and a Direction Array to push the healing properties into the villager’s body.

***

Six grey wolves circled a thin man wearing tattered clothes, the man held a sword stained with dry blood, silently promising to cut any beast that dared to attack. Even though the sunburn marks were evident, the man’s face looked pale, his lips cracked because of dehydration, but he still held the sword firmly.

The leading wolf decided to break the stalemate by jumping forward, the others followed it. The man pushed magic energy to his arms and slashed in a circular movement around himself. Two wolves got cut, the others pressed, he changed the flow of energy to his legs and jumped backward in the direction of a fallen wolf while slashing to defend against the attacks. Another wolf got cut, but only superficially, while two wolves clawed the man’s arm and side.

Fortunately, another surge of magic energy help him jump back and avoid more attacks, blood drip from the claw cuts, but he could only hiss and ignore the wounds. The wolves attacked again, he slashed another wolf before retreating again, however this time, he landed awkwardly and hurt his ankle.

Lew could only give up on saving resources, he took a MQ energy crystal from his pouch and smashed it just in time to power his defense against an attacking wolf. With the new surge of energy, he pushed the beast back and thrust his sword at another one that came attacking from the side. Hastily absorbing the remaining dense energy on the surroundings, he dashed forward and finished the last wolves before almost passing out.

The kneeling and painting Lew turned towards the walls that were finally visible on the horizon.

“Finally, Wind Castle…”