The Tytoan who might’ve been a doctor uncorked a bottle of something and had the matriarch drink it.

Instantly she seemed more awake.

“Kid, can you help or not.” Harlan was a little taken aback by her lack of decorum, but he liked it.

“I’ll need to take a look at your soul, but probably, and technically I am the nurse here. My brother will do the heavy lifting.”

Balor spoke to her.

“I will need to look at your soul, so I will need physical contact. Do you consent to this?”

She put her wing closer to Balor who took that as a yes, but before Harlan could place him on her wing one of the guards put his own in the way.

“Mother, are you certain that this is the right thing to do? Can we even trust one of them?”

She was fuming.

“If you don’t move your wing I will have you defeathered and tarred. Hurry up little ring, I can hear death calling my soul already.”

The man stepped back with a worried look, at least Harlan was pretty sure it was worry. It was hard to tell with people who didn’t have a face like a human, at least an Ibexian didn’t have a beak.

As Balor was finally put on the matriarch's wing he could see the true extent of the damage.

He had never seen such a thing, he saw how the other doctors had kept her alive for so long, a membrane had been placed over the soul.

While unaligned souls such as animals were an ocean, hers was more like clouds or mist, though it still flowed like water.

Her clouds seemed to darken shift and move as blocks churned the sea of the soul.

“I cannot believe you are alive as you are. A soul so beaten and torn should’ve faded into dust or you should’ve turned into an exploding pile of gore by now. But I see what has been done to keep that from happening. And also I do believe I can help, though I have never done it in such a way. This will be equal parts treatment and experiment if it works. But you would rather die today with hope or fade away anyway.” At the mention of her exploding the guards grew tense.

“I’ll let you try, little ring.“

“My name is Balor. Now shall we talk about price?”

“I am going back to sleep. They all know what I am willing to pay, talk to my son.”

The Tytoan who Harlan was now absolutely sure was a doctor gave her another potion, this time she quickly fell asleep when she drank it.

The guard who tried to stop them before spoke.

“We have payments ready to be sent in gold and magical knowledge. If you have a place which we might securely speak, we may negotiate.”

“Of course. I have a room set up for privacy.”

Harlan led the man to the bunker. He wasn’t sure at first if she should, but he didn’t actually know how to ward things well and any privacy veil he could cast would’ve probably not been enough for them.

It took some time, and Ibery had to come with as well, but he was willing to follow him into the bunker.

“First off, would you like some tea? Any snacks perhaps?”

“No, I do not.”

“Alright. What magical knowledge are your people willing to pay?”

“We have magics known only to us and the academy. We are willing to teach you advanced techniques for both elemental imbibing and telekinesis. As well as some techniques for flight, though those must come with an agreement that you would teach no one else.”

“What is imbibing? And is that really all that you have?”

“Imbibing is the process of infusing oneself with magic to temporarily gain an effect. My own darkened wings are from earth magic, we don’t do well with armor so this grants us extra protection. And yes, that is all that we are willing to offer. We have thought long and hard about what we can bear to give up.”

Instantly the idea piqued Harlan’s interest, it sounded like it should help with his own research.

“How much can I expect to be taught? And in what form? I wouldn’t expect to have someone come here from the confederacy just to teach me. Can I learn all of that and forgo any payment in gold?”

“We are willing to teach you 2 magical subjects if you forgo the gold. This will be in the form of books.”

Harlan would’ve said yes right then, but Balor butted into the talks.

Harlan let him take over everything, only barely paying attention to the talks.

After an half hour they came to an agreement.

“Fine, we shall teach you imbibing and telekinesis as well as allowing you to learn from the soul doctor who treated her before. Though we will not guarantee that he will teach you anything.”

“Agree to the deal.”

“Deal. We should get to work immediately then.”

They reentered the room and placed Balor on her chest, Harlan held his hands over him to keep him in place and to allow him to also easily work on her, as well as making sure they could keep in contact through the whole process.

“Everyone who does not need to be here at this moment should leave the room. Dahlia, Ibery, you…?”

“San.”

“San, you can all stay. Doctor, are you the one who made that membrane like thing on her soul?”

“Yes, and my name is Hech.”

“Good, your job will be to maintain the membrane. Place your hands next to mine and don’t freak out.”

The man did as asked.

“Good, it is much faster to speak this way. My plan is quite simple. I will cut through the membrane and rearrange her soul. The soul should be smooth like the surface of a lake, but whatever spells damaged hers caused a large number of walls within it, information on what should be where isn’t setting where it should be. Hence her body being malformed. If all else fails I will ask you to completely remove the membrane and when her soul starts to disperse I will put it back together like I did for Harlan. But that would be a highly risky maneuver and I am only keeping it in mind for a worst case, if your membrane fully dissolves at any point during the procedure I will implement this plan, so do not get in the way if that happens. Now, I will cut through the membrane and then break down one of these walls, we will see what that will affect and go from there. Harlan, Lugh, you are going to be extra mana for me. I can absorb yours when I get low, if I get low rather. I have no idea about the efficiency of what I am about to do. If any of you have any ideas, tell me now.”

Hech tried to talk through his soul, but he had no idea how. An issue Balor forgot about.

“Ring, I have no way to speak with you in whatever way you are. But I have no ideas, most of what you are talking about makes sense to me though.”

“Fine, I shall speak aloud as necessary, and you, Sen, as we heal her, her body might snap back into the correct shape. If that happens it is perfectly normal, though if she begins seizing then you may be needed to hold her still and not break our connection. Dahlia, if he tries to stop anything we are doing, you are free to remove him.”

Dahlia bowed and Sen scowled.

Balor poked at the membrane in many places, seeing if it was weak somewhere and asking the doctor to make it stronger as needed. Then he finally made the first cut.

Balor could see it was starting to fade away but ignored that, the next part was to reach inside and poke at the walls until he found out how much energy it would take, then break one and make sure she would be alright.

He started at a place which was already fairly close to being level, one hit, two, three, four, five, he saw it crack on the sixth hit.

He also noticed that it was healing the cracks using the energy from her own soul.

Balor smashed the first wall and the reaction was sudden, the soul found its level and her left leg slightly twisted back into a proper position.

Balor retreated out to simply watch her.

“The first wall is broken. How are you two doing?”

“I am fine for now, ensuring the strength of the membrane is fairly light work compared to making a new one.”

“I am completely fine.”

The next set started, he broke a second wall without issue, by the 4th wall the membrane was affected by the sudden wave of energy from the soul finding its form, it held but the sudden need to keep everything stable took energy from everyone.

They were starting to see the effects of their work, they could see on her sleeping face that the pain seemed to be lessened, she wasn’t tossing and turning as much.

“A break for now then?”

Hech wiped sweet from his brow and agreed. Only then did the group notice that hours had already passed.

Harlan called Sara to cook for them but he found food was already prepared.

They moved to the kitchen and began to eat. It was 3 roasted chickens with potatoes and carrots cooked in their juices.

Everyone sat around the table and talked as they got their energy back.

“There isn’t any issue with the food, right?”

“Birds in nature eat other smaller birds all the time. It is no issue for our people any more than it is for an Ibexian to be a sheep herder.”

“Well, I guess you guys aren’t really birds anyway.”

The Tytoans thought on exactly what he meant by the statement.

Everyone else was completely lost on the meaning.

“Yes, I know what you mean. That does also factor into our thoughts on the matter.”

“So, you guys got here pretty quickly. I wasn’t expecting you for a week or more. I also wasn’t expecting the gate.”

“Once the council decided that Matriarch Sindry would be coming here she paid for the gate mages herself.”

Harlan felt he got the questions he wanted answered, so the rest was simple small talk until they regained their energy, what foods and other banal things one liked.

This continued for a few days, the rest of the family had even come over, but Harlan missed them because he was in the procedure at the time. Zella decided to stay since there was a guest room left though.

Just days of breaking the walls, watching for the burst of energy from this, and then making sure she lived as her body rearranged itself into the proper shapes. Then eating and rest, then back to work.

Sen was clearly not taking it well at first when she went into fits as her bones broke and reformed over and over again before settling.

But as they worked and even woke her up at times Sen could see how much better she was feeling.

After 6 days and Harlan even supplying Hech with some anti-sleep elixirs they were down to the final wall. It was the highest of them but they didn’t worry in the slightest about such a thing. The three had worked as a team for enough hours and Harlan had picked up on the membrane spell and how to use it in a more freeform manner for him to be a backup with sealing the waves of power in, they learned during the 4th day that if they kept it fully contained then she recovered faster since she didn’t need to take time to reabsorb the little bits of her soul which she was losing in the process.

Balor hit the wall and everything went as expected. It broke but was contained, all kinds of small subtle changes happened all over Sindry’s body, a lump that shouldn’t be there was gone, a small chip on her beak was healed, her wings took on a shine.

After an hour of small tests by all three of them she was cleared to be woken up.

She blinked and stretched her wings and legs, which had been increasingly worthless for years. She vocalized a little song that she learned as a girl. She was healed.

“Boy, ring, Hech, thank you. Now, get me out of this bed.”

Sen was allowed back in the room when she woke up without issue.

She couldn’t walk yet since much of her body was atrophied from disuse.

“You should probably stay still for a little while until you get your strength up again. But you can sit on a chair outside if you want.”

She grumbled for a time before Sen carried her outside to a chair.

Harlan decided to sit next to her.

“So. What are your thoughts on the Fomorians?”

“If you mean you, Calli said you are alright by his standards. Though those are pretty loose.”

“No, I mean them. I still barely know what they are like other than everyone calling them monsters in human skin, it doesn’t help that The Darkness wants me to kill them all, and I am considering it.”

“You let that witch poison your mind and you think you are ready to commit genocide?”

“I don’t think things are going to go well between us if you talk about her like that.”

“I don’t want to hear a word of it. Once you start killing you can talk about considering killing your own people.”

“I’ve got enough blood on my hands as it is, or do the millions of people who’ve died because I taught the kingdom soulsmithing not count?”

“Of course it doesn’t count, you’ve got to see a life fade before your eyes to understand that weight. Don’t push yourself into being a monster if you don’t need to be one.”

“What if I already am one?”

“Stop looking to be something you aren’t, Sen, take me back inside, I’ve underestimated how weak I am. Thank you for your time Sir Fomoria.”

Sindry and Sen spoke under a new veil he put up.

“That boy isn’t right. She has infected his mind with her blight.”

“He is young, he doesn’t know enough about the world. As far as we can tell he has yet to directly intentionally take a human life.”

“No. He doesn't speak like a child his age, he doesn’t feel like one. He is a monster waiting to happen. I want to stay out of his way or on his good side if I must be in his way. Find out if there is something we can get him so we can smooth over this little conversation. I don’t want to stay here too long, but we will stay for another day so as to not look like he has scared me off. Say I am recovering.”

Ibery would have her own conversation with her aunt about Harlan and if he seemed dangerous or just misunderstood.