Chương 26: Day Twenty-Six

Dear Diary, So. I spent so much time worrying about Saffron potentially turning me in to the popo I nearly missed Sister Siobhan's demonstrations on the Spells to Assess Health and Stabilize a wounded person.

Apparently somebody with the first one Skilled up high enough could detect really subtle conditions way before they became a problem, and the latter one could, again with enough Skill, stop someone from bleeding out, stop the effects of poisons and venoms, and even keep severed body parts from dying until they could be reattached.

Not something I wanted to experience personally, and I had no idea how the Stabilize Spell was supposed to work, because the hand motions looked pretty intricate, but Assess Health seemed like a variation on Status. Instead of a triple circle, it required a single square with little loops at the corners, and a twist of the left wrist before it activated properly. I mean, I think it did. I still couldn't see anybody else's Mana flows.

It took me until near the end of Remedial Celtic to remember what Loki said about that.

"Well, I can see part of why you're having a problem; you hold a pen like you've barely learned to write," he murmured. He sat in the previously unoccupied desk next to me, leaning over to see my work. I'd been busted back to a grade school writing primer, where they had sentences for me to copy onto some scratch paper. The current one was 'Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow'.

I'd been struggling with it for like three hours before he showed up, and he shuffled through my papers before sighing, scooting his chair around until he could reach across and put his hand over and around mine, then guide me through writing that in Standardized Celtic. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"You know I have no idea what I'm writing, right?"

"True, but if we can get you to a slightly better grade of primer, you can practice writing individual words. I suppose it will wind up a bit like writing an iconographic language for you, but needs must." Sister Cheryl glanced back at us, shooting Loki a grateful look as he helped me write.

"Not that I mind, but why the hell is she just letting a complete stranger sit here helping me?" He chuckled as he guided me through the final word.

"It's a Trickster skill, one that a few of my ardent followers and some less savory types have as well. It's called 'Blend'." I quashed my raging curiosity enough to keep my voice reasonably coherent when I asked, "huh. How does that work?" As we moved on to another repetition of the sentence, he explained, "So long as I do not call attention to myself, people assume I'm supposed to be where I am and doing what I'm doing. In all likelihood, she told herself I'm your personal teaching assistant."

"I mean, that's kinda right though." He snorted, blowing some of my hair in front of my face.

"Didn't you catch that the other night? Or were you too drunk to remember?" It took only a moment to twig to what he meant.

"The perfect lie is the absolute truth?" He smiled and nodded, not unlike Sister Siobhan when she came by to check my work.

"That's exactly right. Well done!" Of course, Sister Siobhan didn't add, "my good and faithful devotee."