Chương 19: 1-18 Basement healer

As it turned out, Regeneration could treat a hangover after all. Unfortunately, after Josef cured himself and his friends, it still wasn't enough to improve the spell or increase his level. Idling around outside the tavern and healing the patrons wasn't going to be a reliable grinding process. Though there might have been a way to boost the tavern's income by purging the alcohol straight from people's bodies so they could continue drinking. If they bought more alcohol instead of lynching him, that was.

Josef was trying his best to keep his mind occupied as he and Cana once more snuck through the alleys of Highsend. The sun was still low in the sky, its rays not quite making it all the way into the shadowed corners of the streets, leaving the air still cold from the night before. They also took a minor detour through the sewer system, where he learned that seeing more wasn't always a blessing.

Well, it helped with orienting himself and memorizing the path, but he could have done without the view of the chunky sewage right beside them. As their winding path finally ended, they ascended a ladder, not into the usual back alley street, but straight into a building. Cana had to push aside a wooden box on top of the ladder as she led their way, before they could emerge from below. Looking around, Josef found himself in a mostly empty, windowless cellar, with only a cot, a chair, and a couple of crates inside.

There was a staircase leading up to another floor, acting as the only other entrance to the room.

"Charming place, where exactly are we?" Josef inquired as he took a couple of steps around the room.

"The cellar of a little shop called 'Common Herbs and Ointments'. It's run by an old gecko named Charly. Located right at the edge between the harbor district and the central market. It's one of the few places our people could always turn to for treatment, even when the Sanctum wasn't an option for them. Not that it ever really was…" her voice trailed off near the end.

"And Charly is on board to host this in her shop? Seems pretty dangerous if we're ever found out."

"I am. Someone's gotta help the folks around here, but there's only so much little old me can do on my own." A soft, creaky voice came from above. Charly had apparently overheard their arrival and came down the stairs to meet them. She was, in modest words, a little old lizard lady. Her height barely reached Josef's chest, and the leathery skin on her face was wrinkled and muted in color.

A simple but well cut robe swayed behind her as she made her way down the stairs, with the tip of a tail peeking out from below it.

"Josef. It is a pleasure to meet you, ma'am. Thank you for having us," Josef greeted her politely.

"Oh my, what a little gentleman. I'm Charly. The pleasure's all mine, darling." She chuckled as she shook his hand.

"Quite the contrast to your appearance, I must say." He had to agree with her on that. To keep his own appearance as shrouded as possible, Zassa had given him garments to hide his body. A loose black robe, leathery gloves, and a mask that looked like it came straight from a carnival, depicting some kind of big toothed creature he couldn't identify. It fit only loosely, as it was definitely designed with someone with a muzzle in mind, but that only made it better at hiding his own race.

If he met himself in a dark alley, he would probably run. Josef had originally wanted to go with something white, but as the Sanctum already claimed that one and gold as their primary colors, they decided to go with a contrast instead. Also, fangs were pretty normal among his future clientele. He could only hope that Zassa knew what she was doing.

"Yeah, this getup isn't my favorite, but at least it's practical and breezy," he shrugged.

"Kinda worried I'm going to scare away all the patients." The gecko placated him.

"You won't have to worry about that, dear. A lot of the people coming here are either tough folks who earn a living in the dungeon, or down on their luck and desperate. They'll take whatever help they can get. They wouldn't be coming to a little old herbalist if they weren't."

"By the way, that reminds me. Did the medicine for little Coco also come from here? Do you know why it didn't work?" Josef asked as a memory resurfaced. It was Cana who answered that for him, shaking her head.

"We had tried that at first, but the fever burned her too fiercely, so I bought medicine from an alchemist. With a horrendous markup for 'stinking up his shop'. Fucking bastard. Didn't even work in the end."

"Do you think he gave you a faulty potion on purpose?" Josef asked, before a darker thought struck. Turning to Charly, he asked for her opinion.

"Could a bad potion give someone mana poisoning?"

"That would have to be a very gross mistake. Making the mana inside plants consumable is the most basic step in creating medicine, whether it's my ointments or a proper magic potion." She grimaced as she continued.

"Unless it wasn't an accident, of course."

"He wouldn't dare-" Cana started. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Hopefully not." Charly interrupted her.

"But like you said, the guy's a right bastard. Wouldn't surprise me if he decided to get rid of a 'dirty animal'." The gecko sighed as she shook her head.

"Things have really gone downhill. They have for years, but lately tempers have been boiling over something bad. I'll keep my eyes out for more patients that came back worse from that man."

"Let me know if you find something. I swear, if he's hurt Coco on purpose, then I'll-""Do nothing. Don't get yourself killed, girl. Your daughter needs you alive. Remember, what goes around comes around. He'll get his comeuppance, one way or another. Now, before we go further down that rabbit hole, I'd better head back upstairs before customers arrive. I'll send down folks as needed." Charly then turned and slowly made her way back upstairs, leaving the two of them alone.

"If you do end up doing something, then let me know. I'll help." Josef winked at Cana. With her temper calming down, she shook her head.

"Thanks, but Charly is right. It wouldn't do me any good. If you're all situated, then I'll be heading out again."

"You're not gonna sit around and watch me work all day long?" he asked in mock offense.

"Guess we'll have to make do with each other, right, Nibbles?" The rat gave him a happy squeak, making it clear that he was looking forward to the rest of the day. Then again, the little guy was always in a good mood.

"I'll leave you two to it then. Good luck and all that. Come back once Charly closes down and try not to get lost on the way back." With that, she made her way back down the ladder into the sewers. Josef had memorized the path well enough. Either the increased Intelligence helped, or being able to actually see his surroundings made it easier.

"Well, looks like it's only the two of us now. And it's still gonna be another couple of hours until Dusty comes back. I'm looking forward to introducing you two to each other." He petted his rat as he considered what to do while they waited for their first patient.

"Do you know how to play checkers? Let me teach you." And so, using copper and silver coins as pieces, Josef taught Nibbles how to play checkers. The rodent learned frighteningly fast. Some time later, their first patient finally made their way down the stairs. A somewhat frightened looking fox, with a badly burned arm and a limp in his step. Being sent down into a basement for healing likely painted a scary image for the poor guy. The confusion of seeing a rat play a board-game probably didn't help.

"Ah, excuse me, old Charly said that I could get treated down here?" With this, their work finally began. While the guy was pretty nervous at first, they still managed to calm him down after displaying their skills. Showing off healing magic would do the trick of convincing someone of your competence, at least in this place. As Josef took care of the injured leg with his Heal spell, which turned out to just be sprained badly, Nibbles tended to the burned arm. The type of injury was quite familiar.

Someone clearly visited the dungeon and stuck their arm into a slime for too long, paying the price for it. Once the leg was done, he joined the rodent in treating the arm, but was pleasantly surprised that most of the skin had already recovered. His familiar appeared to be very competent at treating that type of ailment. Nibbles himself lost several big clumps of fur as he treated the arm, but his own natural healing was doing well in keeping up to restore the damage.

By Josef's estimate, the rat had an always active regeneration effect that wasn't much worse than his own spell. What an efficient little guy. Under their combined effort, the process barely took more than a couple of minutes. The leg could once again support the fox's full weight, and his arm looked as good as new, only the shortened fur giving away that something had been amiss before. The fox gave them a chipper thanks and even offered coins for the treatment.

That put Josef in a bit of an awkward spot, because he hadn't considered the topic of payment before. As far as he was concerned, money shouldn't be an issue when health was concerned. He got some free training out of it as well, after all. Ultimately, he accepted a single silver coin for his work. It was less than the guy wanted to offer at first, but still more than the copper coins the ointment would have cost him.

In the end, Josef cared more about not pushing honest people like Charly off the market instead of striking it rich. This price should offer a decent balance. For comparison, a nice big meal at the Salty Snake would cost him 3 silver coins, should they ever feel like charging him. With their first patient on his way, things slowly started to pick up and their time for playing checkers grew shorter and shorter.

Burns were the most common injury they had to treat, with the dungeon being a prime culprit for causing it. Other than that, deep bites and broken bones were the most common issues. Clearly, these were people who made their living by going into the dungeon, with varying degrees of success. Their latest patient shook up the monotony of acid burns, as they were suffering from poison.

As Josef found out by asking, that type of poison was somewhat common on floors 11 to 20 of the dungeon, as one creature there could inflict it by biting. The afflicted area looked pretty bad, with necrosis having spread around it, leaving the flesh black and smelling foul. Charly was offering ointments in her shop that could purge the poison quickly, but without immediate treatment the damage it left would still be considerable and take time to heal.

Their patient had decided to save money, thinking they could avoid being inflicted with the malady. They couldn't, and now they paid the price in the form of a lot of pain and a scolding loud enough that it had carried downstairs. This time around, Nibbles was definitely pushing his skills during the healing process. Josef supported him with his own Regeneration spell on both the rat and the patient.

He considered going straight for his Heal spell, but he could tell that his familiar was confident in handling the matter, so he trusted him. His trust was rewarded, not only with the smile of a healthy patient but also with two notifications vying for his attention.