Chapter 64: You Did Good
Valens sat, wedged into the little space under the stairs of the basement with his legs sprawled out in front of him, a searing echo of an agony burning still in his chest, fingers of his right hand trembling like an addict dumped by his dealer and left all alone with no means against a long night ahead.
You’re not supposed to use every single drop in that tiny well in your chest, I forgot. That’s when the pain starts, and you start shaking.
It was coming back to him in drops of shimmering blue, dripping from the very ceiling of his flesh, but not with enough haste to satiate the searing sensation about his limbs. The Hexsurge proved a mighty spell that could allow him to see through a man’s soul, but as it appeared, it demanded more mana than an Inferno to manage.
There is some sense in that. One is for the burning, and one is for different things.
At least the job was done, and there in the basement rested more than a dozen men suffering from the nightmares of their episodes. Some had their toes missing, some others had their legs chopped off, and others were staring out into the empty walls, thinking darkly about what a Miner could do without his arms.
Not much, I’d say. You can carry a legless man into the mine, and with enough stats, have him hack at the walls from a little down near the ground. You couldn’t, however, expect an armless man to learn how to handle a pickaxe with his toes. Or could you?
A trickle of sweat ran down his back at the thought as slowly, painfully his exhausted source saw new life being dripped into it. He remembered the times when he had to use every drop of his mana in the Necromancer’s Rift but never did once he experienced something more than mild pain. This time, though, the amount of Hexsurges he had to deploy to cleanse that invisible sickness left him nearly breathless.
Perhaps it’s the nature of the treatment. It’s likely that dealing in souls is a touch different than dealing in flesh.
A bed creaked loudly as one of its legs gave out, cracking under the weight of a toeless man and sending him sprawling onto the ground. He huffed and groaned as he rolled like a ball toward the side wall, bounced back painfully with arms flailing, fingers searching for anything to latch on. In the end, two of the more healthy-looking Miners had to haul him off to his feet while the young Priest, Simeon, watched with the look of a shocked rabbit.
Experience. Once you get more of it you start seeing the world in a different light. Become more ready for things not to go your way. Useful stuff, indeed, that experience. Good thing you have a master by your side.
Father Harmon observed stately the little ruckus caused by the broken bed, gestured at the pair of Miners carrying the unfortunate man to take him to one of the sturdier beds, walked over to him and checked his body as he had done so dozens of times on others after Valens was done with the work.
Valens didn’t blame the man for trying to make sure the plague was gone as he hadn’t been able to give him a clear explanation of the treatment he’d used to fix these people. ‘I’ve cleansed their souls’ seemed too much on the nose, and felt it would’ve been more appropriate for God’s men’s line of work than a stray Healer. ‘I plucked some dark streaks off their bodies,’ on the other hand, was just as bad, but it at least gave some indication of the work he’d done without sounding like too bullshit of an excuse.