The Exorcist Doctor

Gael grabbed a pouncing wolf by the snout, pried its jaw open, and then ripped it head apart. Pinkish-purple blood sprayed instead of crimson red, and that was the ultimate sign for the four of them to keep slashing, stabbing, kicking, and slaughtering their way through the horde of essence-mutated wolves in the Fogspire Forest.

To his right, Jin fired mudblood cannons over and over, each shot slamming into a wolf’s ribs hard enough to turn it into a tumbling sack of fur and broken bones. Then Jin would step in and finish those he couldn’t kill with a single punch. Liorin, standing on an overhead branch, kept his hands on the tree so he could metallicize its roots and control them like living vines, using them to swat and lash at any wolf trying to get the pounce on Jin. Fergal’s battle plan was much simpler. He dashed from tree to tree, using his rapid jumping Art to turn himself into a blur before carving any wolf trying to track him into pieces with his four spider claws. Out of the four of them, he was the one exerting the most effort, but that was probably just because he didn’t want to be here.

Gael couldn’t relate. In fact, he was laughing, because he’d forgotten how good it felt to work up a good sweat after a week of boring paperwork and nonstop couch-sitting.

“It’s getting lively in here, ain’t it?” he shouted, summoning his three hungry flowers to devour and crush three more wolves charging at him. “The man with the least kills pays for dinner tonight!”

And the moment Gael declared the bet, everyone tightened up. Jin’s gauntlet hissed louder as he started blasting wolves in stronger, sharper bursts, not even bothering to watch them fall properly before he pivoted to the next target. Liorin’s vines also started spearing down like stakes, actively seeking out wolves to impale instead of playing defense all the time. Fergal… started jumping around even faster. Gael didn’t even know the gangster boss was this fast now, but he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Apart from Gael and Maeve, basically everyone in the southern ward had been eating Myrmur meat for the better part of the past two years. Even Liorin should be as strong as Fergal was two years ago now.

Of course, that didn’t mean Gael was going to just lie down and accept having to pay for dinner, so he also picked up speed and went a little berserk on the wolves. He laughed as he cracked heads with his cane, severed legs with his hungry flowers, and clicked his heels every now and then to stun every wolf in the vicinity.

“... But what’s the point of doing this?” Jin grumbled mid-kill, his gauntlet crushing a wolf’s throat. “These aren’t even Myrmurs. They won’t give us any points.”

Gael drove his cane into another wolf’s ribs and held it back as it bled out, snarling and snapping at his face. “Well, ever since we took out a bunch of Myrmurs in this forest two years ago, the natural wildlife came back. I’m talking hogs, bears, owls, and all the little saints of the food chain… but unfortunately, we fucked up a little. It took us a while to haul all of the Myrmur carcasses out of the forest, so a lot of bioarcanic essence managed to seep into the ground and spread across the forest, eventually finding its way into the stomachs of many innocent beasts like these.”

Jin blasted another wolf sideways. Gael tossed his away and pointed down at its corpse with his cane.

“Beasts affected by bioarcanic essence are stronger, more aggressive, and reproduce faster than usual. They grow faster as well. Also, see how some of these wolves have bug mutations on their bodies?” he pointed out. “That’s an underdeveloped pair of fly wings trying to grow out the wolf’s back. That other wolf over there has chitin plates growing on the sides of its legs. If we don’t come in here and cull their numbers every once in a while, they’ll eventually grow too feral and break out into the city. I estimate in about three or four more years, the bioarcanic essence in the soil will dwindle, and the wildlife will return to… well, as normal as wildlife in Bharncair can be.”

The slaughter lasted a few more minutes, brutal and loud, until the remaining single digit number of wolves finally broke. Mutated as they were, they were still beasts that could feel fear, so Gael didn’t chase after them as they tucked their tails between their legs and ran.

Now the four of them stood amidst a bloodbath of wolf carcasses, panting hard, sweat cooling under their clothes. Gael’s chest rose and fell behind his mask, but his arms ached in that satisfying way that meant he’d finally warmed up his body again. He could probably go back to fighting Myrmurs tomorrow like he hadn’t just spent an entire week hunched over a surgical table like an organ goblin.

He looked around, grinning as his boots sank slightly into mud darkened by blood.

“Well, well. How many did we all kill?” He straightened up and jabbed his cane at the immediate carcasses around him. “I did in twenty-five. There’s no way any of you—”

“Thirty-one,” Fergal reported, wiping blood off his spider claws.

“Thirty-two,” Liorin said, releasing control of his metallic roots and hopping down from his branch.

“Fourty-four,” Jin said flatly, folding his gauntlet back into its briefcase form.

So Gael blinked.

Then he blinked again, as if his eyes might have misheard, before sighing in acceptance of his fate.

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “I felt like paying for dinner anyway. I am your boss, after all, and an even more benevolent saint.”

“Okay,” Liorin said.

“Whatever you say,” Fergal said.

“But I’m hungry now, so…” Gael looked around the carcasses again, hands on his hips, before clapping excitedly. “I’m feeling like some smoked wolf meat for lunch! Liorin! Fergal! Help me make a mud oven!”

And the two of them, for all their blood and steel, looked strangely enthusiastic when they heard the words ‘mud oven’. They’d most likely never made one before, either, so the three of them immediately gathered, started scooping up a bunch of wet soil, and began piling it into a dome.

“Build, build, build,” Gael chanted under his breath, feeling giddy playing with mud at his age.

“I’d always wanted to try making one,” Fergal said, evidently suppressing the excitement in his voice. “I’d heard it was possible, but there’s barely any mud in Blightmarch to try.”

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“And the mud in my village was never wet enough,” Liorin chimed in. “But here, the mud feels sticky enough. Maybe can?”

The dome immediately slumped sideways. They tried again, making it taller, then wider, then somehow even worse. Liorin attempted to help by weaving metallic vines into the structure like ribs, but the mud oozed between them and sagged anyway, turning the whole thing into a collapsing lump. Fergal tried to ‘support’ it with the tips of his spider claws, except the claws kept carving grooves and cracks into the mud, and every crack made the oven look more like a dying fungus than a cooking tool.

“Fuck, we’re bad at this,” Gael muttered.

“You’re the one not helping,” Fergal muttered back.

“Maybe we need more mud?” Liorin offered.

“Good idea,” they both said.

Jin watched the three of them ‘work’ for a few moments, visibly losing patience at how clumsy and stupid they were acting, before finally grumbling and putting on his gauntlet again.

“Move. You guys go butcher the wolves and gather burnable materials or something.”

Fergal dashed away, and Gael jerked Liorin out of the way as Jin sprayed his mudblood in a clean, controlled stream, forming the rough shape of a proper oven in seconds. Then he crouched and started shaping it with his hands, smoothing the curves, reinforcing the base, carving an opening, and even making vents for it like he'd done this a thousand times.

The result was going to be solid and functional—a real oven instead of a joke.

Oh, Gael couldn’t wait to have smoked wolf meat.

“... By the way, how old are you now, Liorin?” he asked, giving the boy a side eye.

Liorin counted his fingers. “I think… fourteen?”

Gael shrugged. “Good enough,” he said, reaching inside his coat.

Cara and Evelyn ate their noodle bowls happily like they’d never known hunger in their lives, but Vivi ate… differently.

Maeve noticed it between bites of her own crystal seaweed broth noodles. The way Vivi held her chopsticks, the small pauses, the quiet precision, and the way she dabbed at her lips with a napkin like she’d been taught mess was a moral failure… it was familiar. It was controlled, like she was trying not to take up too much space even while eating.

Of course, Maeve recognized it because she’d been taught the same when she was a child.

“You eat with proper Vharnish etiquette,” she said, peeking at Vivi as she did. “Is that House Thornebed training?”

Vivi froze. Her chopsticks hovered mid-air, a ribbon of noodles dangling like it’d been caught in time. For a second, she looked like Maeve had accused her of stealing silver from the clinic’s coffers.

Then her shoulders dipped, and she nodded timidly.

“It stands out, doesn’t it?” she murmured.“Is it… strange? If it is, I can try to eat more… messily.”

“Well, there’s no need for that,” Cara answered, mouth still half-full with noodles. “No need to make yourself uglier just to fit in. We’re all shot on table manners anyways. Look at that girl.”

She wiped her mouth and pointed her chopsticks at Evelyn, who was laughing as she leaned over the railing to dump half her meat noodles down at the four giant hellhounds. Wet slaps and a chorus of throaty, pleased snarls rose up from below as the hellhounds snapped at the falling meat.

“... See?” Cara said, grinning as she returned to slurping her own bowl. “Everyone’s a weirdo in the clinic. You’ll fit in either way, so better to keep your manners with you. They’ll help you keep your cool when Gael starts drinking and going wild at dinner.”

Vivi gave a small, nervous nod. “Okay then.”

And she resumed eating—still careful, still neat, but with her shoulders just a fraction less tense.

Maeve kept eating too, letting the broth settle warmth into her chest. The balcony view cooled most of it. The light blue mist wafting out of the Fogspire Forest really was calming, and with the sounds of a lively shop beneath them—loud voices, clinking bowls, a man laughing too hard, a woman scolding him, a child coughing into their sleeve—it really was a nice atmosphere to lose oneself in.

So it surprised Maeve when Vivi took the initiative and spoke on her own.

“Thank you for letting me help with the clinic’s finances,” she said quietly. “Back home, I… I wasn’t given much to do. Even with Jin, I’m mostly just a drag on him. It’s been a while since I felt… useful.”

“Back home,” Cara echoed gently. “Back up in Vharnveil, you mean?”

Vivi nodded. “I’m the fifth daughter of a branch household under House Thornebed. My father is the younger brother to the eldest son in the main branch, so we are Thornebed, but not truly… Thornebed. And as you may already know, the Spiders of House Thornebed are tasked with controlling the flow of information across the city. We’re taught to build networks with everyone we meet and to keep eyes and ears everywhere—so our head can rule without being seen.”

“Sounds cool,” Evelyn said with a mouthful of meat, leaned in, elbows on the table. “So you lot really do that? Like proper spy work?”

“In many forms,” Vivi said. “Information brokers, bankers, arms merchants… every branch household is responsible for all the information in a particular sector. My father owns many small arts businesses in the lower eastern district. He oversees them, keeps tabs on what people buy, what they complain about, and what they whisper about when they think nobody’s listening. I… wasn’t very useful in that system.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not the eldest. Nor am I the second, or the third, or the fourth. There was nothing for me to inherit and nothing to oversee, so I was given little to do. Mother called me ornamental for most of my life—an extra pretty face to put in our family photographs—and… I think I agreed with her. As they say, even the spare has a purpose in war. A fifth girl is just another candle for the drafty halls.”

Neither Maeve, Cara, nor Evelyn said anything. They kept their heads low and kept on chewing.

“... That was, until my parents decided I would be wed to the youngest son of an up-and-coming sculpting household a year ago,” she said, smiling softly. “I was told they dealt in high-class pottery and sculpting. Gallery contracts and statue commissions, like the ones that sit in my family’s halls. The plan was for me to become a part of their household and serve as House Thornebed’s informant in the new generation of fine sculpting, and… you know, I was glad when I heard the news.”

Then she started fidgeting in her seat, and if Maeve wasn’t mistaken, she looked almost happy, thinking about whatever she was thinking about.

“I truly was glad. I thought I could finally begin to make a name for myself as a Thornebed. I thought I could finally be useful, and… well, I listened around. Rumors were my husband-to-be was quite the prince. Dashing looks and impeccable manners. People said he treated his staff in his store well, so I was excited to meet him.”

Evelyn made a sound of pure interest, like a dog hearing a whistle. “A prince? So then what happened? Was he good looking? Did you get married and—”

“He didn’t show up on the day of the wedding.” Her face immediately turned wistful, and Maeve could see her biting her tongue discreetly. “There was no notice whatsoever. My family had spent a small fortune arranging the ceremony, inviting all of our closest associates, informants, friends, and family to the Church, but… I was the only one waiting there in my white and gold dress, looking like a fool in front of everyone.”

Cara’s hand flew up to cover her mouth, eyes widening with outrage. “Saintess above,” she muttered.

“Oh, that’s evil.” Evelyn leaned forward, even more intrigued. “That’s proper evil. What kinda prince does that? Why’d he cancel on you?”

Maeve found herself leaning slightly towards Vivi, too—because she was interested in knowing the rest of the story—but then she felt yet another sharp jerk at her ankle, and she scowled down at her bloodshackle.

Very quickly, she turned her scowl onto the Fogspire Forest once again.

Okay, but what in the hells are they actually doing in there?