Chương 1: Cleansing the Curse

The back of the infirmary was barely recognisable at night. Instead of the usual rush of carts coming in and out delivering supplies, it was eerily quiet and empty. Good job too, because Aaron didn't want anyone to notice him sneaking in. Under the cover of moonlight, he and his brother crept around the outdoor bin store at the back of the building. Tim screwed his nose up and covered his face. If not for his brother, Aaron would have barely noticed the smell of the bins.

He was so used to the unmistakable stench of sickly sweet rot. He'd been working as a healer for three years and if he had learned anything, there was always a worse smell.

"Come on, Tim," he beckoned, in a voice barely louder than a whisper. His brother shuffled along slowly, struggling with his walking cane.

"I'm going as fast as I can," Tim whisper-shouted. The typical tired look in his pale face was much less obvious today. Aaron hoped Tim was being bolstered by the excitement to finally try the cure he'd been working on. But he knew his brother was an anxious type; fear and adrenaline were probably playing a bigger role in his mood. Years of effort and study, all for this night. Finally, he would remove the curse from his brother. Tim's cane clacked against the tiled floor as they snuck towards the entrance.

In the darkness, it was so loud Aaron couldn't help but grimace. Yet minutes passed and nobody came to investigate the noise. He had rehearsed an excuse in his head in case anyone challenged them. Tim hadn't looked particularly pleased when he made him go over it three times before they left, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Tim was a lost patient that he was helping back to his bed. And it wasn't like Tim didn't fit the role. He was frail and sick enough.

The surgically white light emanating from enchanted glowing balls on the ceiling flooded the room, eliminating any remnant of shadows. Aaron squinted and shielded his eyes. It took a few moments to acclimatise to bright lights. They were in the delivery room where all the supplies were received and processed. Empty crates were stacked messily around the edges with the lids dumped vaguely on top of them. There was a worn oak desk at the back with a quill and ledger on top. Aaron didn't stop to look for long.

He led Tim out of the delivery room and into the main basement corridor. They followed it to the end, creeping past the laundry room on the left. There was a girl in there, with neatly scraped back brown hair. Aaron's heart pounded as she made eye contact with him. No one was supposed to be down here at night! Trying not to appear too guilty, he grabbed Tim's arm.

"Come on Mister Rogers, let's get you back to bed. You can't keep wandering off like this" Aaron was an awful liar and actor, but he had practised this line so much that it was almost instinctive. It was a little bit of a dubious story that a patient would wander down to the basement, but it wasn't uncommon for them to get confused and roam around at night. Any healer would know this. He just hoped that the laundry girl would understand as well. His heart raced.

Excitement, anticipation, and that ever-present fear about what he was about to do. Three years he'd committed to this, and it could all go up in flames if anyone thought to give them a second look.

"Maybe we should turn back," Tim whispered.

"You could lose your career for this." Aaron turned to his little brother. He had stopped in the middle of the hallway.

"Don't be silly," Aaron said.

"Everything I've done has been to get us to this point. There's no turning back now… Not for either of us." He took a step towards Tim and clasped his shoulder tight, meeting his eyes.

"We're going to get you healthy again." Tim drew a deep breath and nodded.

"Okay." Twelve years had passed since Tim became cursed. Aaron still blamed himself for it. If he hadn't dared him to touch the relic, he wouldn't be in this mess. They were just kids—he knew that—but it didn't relieve his guilt. He signed up as a healer's apprentice the day of his sixteenth birthday. Three years later and he'd completed his novice training, which was a year faster than average. He was easily the happiest person at the graduation ceremony yesterday.

He had finally achieved the Journeyman rank in Spirit Healing and was able to learn the Cleanse Curse skill. He didn't care what anyone thought, though. He didn't even really care about graduating. The only thing that mattered was that he was finally prepared for tonight's ritual and saving Tim. They crept onward, Aaron leading the way, stopping every so often for Tim to catch up. Their objective was an old rest area that he'd been preparing for tonight. They were so close now, his heart was racing.

"Are you not nervous?" Tim asked.

"I'm bricking it." They both laughed, and Aaron felt some of his nerves dissipate. It would work. It had to work. The corridor was long and narrow. Rows of paintings of graduating novices lined the walls. They must have spanned back fifty years. Aaron chuckled at the white paint peeling off the walls around them. It was beautifully ironic given how poorly most of the masters treated their novices. They stopped at one of the many doors along the corridor on the basement level.

Aaron swished around his pocket for a few heartbeats and brought out an old copper key. He rattled it around the lock on a door a few times until it finally clicked in the mechanism and turned smoothly. He flinched as the door creaked open. It came to an abrupt stop after only a foot as it hit something. Aaron squeezed through the gap into the room. It was an old apprentice rest area that had been taken out of use last year due to a vermin infestation, but Master Addison had never bothered to fix it.

It was perfect. Aaron had stayed late for weeks getting it clean and safe. He needed somewhere no one would look. The room was tiny; there was a wooden bed pushed against the back wall, a small desk and chair next to the door. Aaron had spent weeks collecting everything he could to perfect the ritual. There were incense burners, books, magic-infused stones, and potions contained in glass vials.

Making sure the door was carefully closed and locked first, Aaron struck a match and lit a few candles he had dotted around the room. The flickering lights illuminated the room just enough to read a book. Glass was a luxury in the city and extremely expensive, but it had the perfect properties to contain the mana infused into potions for long periods of time without them spoiling. In fact, everything in the room was eye-wateringly expensive. For three years they had scraped by, saving every spare penny they could.

Nothing remained after buying everything he needed for this single Cleanse Curse ritual. Tim had sat on the edge of the bed, panting heavily while Aaron was preparing the room. Even a moderate length walk on flat ground was enough to tire him out these days; it was painful to see him like this.

"Are you ready?" Aaron grinned, trying his best to look confident. Tim looked up with a hint of reluctance in his blue eyes.

"If you're confident, I trust you." He smiled, but Aaron could tell it was forced. The pain on his face was clear—this was more activity than Tim could usually manage.

"Lie down then." Aaron clapped his brother gently on the shoulder and squeezed.

"You're going to feel so much better once this is over. I promise." Aaron's preparation was meticulous. He was an expert in everything you could learn about curses. Being a fairly abstract form of magic, it was difficult to find information about them, but Aaron's unrelenting determination and a good amount of coin worked well together. Many had tried to help Tim, but no one had seen a curse like it. But then again, no one went to the lengths Aaron did to research everything and no one was as prepared as him.

He picked up a flask of Sour Lilac and popped the bung off, chugging the cloudy brown liquid. It was granular and earthy, like it was full of sand and tasted like wet soil mixed with seawater.

"Yuck." He flicked his tongue out in disgust as he finished the mana potion. Aaron picked up a handful of mana stones–light blue iridescent crystals. They had the distinctive faint blue shimmer that mana-infused objects gave off, similar to the potion on the desk behind him. He placed them around Tim on the bed and gave him one to clasp in each hand.

Mana stones were useful for recharging a mage's mana quickly, but they also had the useful property of providing fuel for difficult spells with extremely high mana costs. The floral smell of thyme, rosemary and citrus filled the room as Aaron lit the incense sticks in the tall round-based incense burner on the desk. The combination was strange, and so strong it made his eyes water a little. He'd read that burning particular herbs helped to ward off the harmful effects of curses.

Rumors from an old apothecary near his home said that malicious mages would put traps on their curses to punish the accursed if they ever sought a cure. That's why Aaron burned every herb known to have a positive effect. Whether it was a transformation, luck-altering, blood or any other type of curse, he had a plan to mitigate it. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Aaron brought a small book out of his bag and opened it on Tim's bed. The spine said, Tome of the Gifted. A.

Barrows. Healer. It was given to him on Ascension Day just before his eighteenth birthday. He treated it as if it was a sacred religious text. It was linked with his very soul and reflected and guided how his power grew. It changed with him as he learned and refined his craft. He turned to the skills chapter and found the Cleanse Curse page. He was the only mage in the city to learn the ability. Curses were so rare, no one bothered wasting talent points in it.

As far as Aaron could tell, Tim was the first case in almost a hundred years. There were times when he was ridiculed for it but he never cared for the drama or asserting his ego. Spell Name: Cleanse Curse Spell school: Protection magic Spell class: Spirit Healer Level: 1 Description: Remove a curse from a willing person. The spell is performed as a ritual, consuming magical reagents to increase its power. It requires more mana and more reagents to remove more powerful curses.

Mana efficiency and maximum power increase with levels. Use: Runecrafting The Cleanse Curse spell required Runecrafting. He had to visualise a series of complex runes in his mind's eye. It had taken him a year before he could even cast a basic soul healing spell this way, but it was second nature by this point. With the two largest mana stones in his hands and a necklace full of them around his neck, he began carving the runes in his mind.

Slicing and curving intricate shapes out in a focused and calming rhythm, he drew deeply on his spirit. His chest began to warm as he went through each line of intricate runes, the very core of him boiling with the sheer quantity of essence, like fire within him. As he finished carving the last rune, he stretched his hand out towards Tim, who was now clenching his eyes tightly shut and bracing. With a thought, Aaron's mana shot from his chest and through his hand, lancing toward Tim.

Tim jolted slightly at the shock but didn't seem to be in any discomfort. Aaron felt the power of Tim's soul—bright as a flame—and he sensed something else too. Something darker. A shadow in his soul that seemed to rival the flame in size. There it was. The spell was working. He didn't hesitate in reaching out for it, binding the spell to the curse. Now connected with the curse, Aaron crushed the mana stones in his hands.

They faded to dust and a light blue glittery substance fell through his fingers onto the floor in two neat piles. Like lightning, mana shot through his hands from where the stones used to be and joined up with the mana flowing from his chest. He had never felt so much power before. It was energising and almost a bit intoxicating. His body felt hot. Blood rushed through him, pounding in his ears. His mind was open. Anything felt possible. Aaron focused on the curse, separating it in his mind from Tim's soul.

It was dark and sinister, like a void in his chest; a corruption which was eating away at him from within. With force and intent, Aaron pushed his mana into the void. Its reaction was almost life-like. It writhed and wriggled, as if in pain from the spell. Tim mumbled an agonised groan. Aaron pressed on. He couldn't stop here. If he didn't finish the spell, the curse would almost certainly kill Tim within the year. He forced more mana into the spell.

The mana stones around his neck started to disintegrate one by one. Out of the original five, only three remained. As his spell burned through the curse, it made a screech-like hiss and small whirls of black smoke rose from Tim's chest. Angrily, the curse seemed to lash back at Aaron, wrapping around the stream of mana he was beaming onto it. Aaron tried to reposition his spell to shake it off, but couldn't. It was supposed to encompass the curse, not the other way around.

As he refocused his mana to attack the curse, the void seemed to mould around it and avoid the brunt of the spell. Something was wrong. The curse started to climb and meld into Aaron's mana. He felt it twisting upward against his will, worming its way in so fast he couldn't even react. Aaron's eyes widened in horror as the curse advanced towards his chest. He tried to stop the spell, but the sheer amount of power flowing through it made it impossible. As the void reached his chest, he felt the warmth fade.

It was replaced by a frigid hollow feeling. The feeling made Aaron gasp sharply. The curse was different from anything he had read. It wasn't a spell, it was like a living creature. It was powerful and cunning. Every rumour he listened to and every text he read described them as a static mark on the soul which could be encompassed and cut out with the right spell. Nothing had suggested this. Panic set in. If this kept up, the curse might spread to him too.

In a final last ditch effort, he channelled as hard as he could. He split the beam of mana into lots of tiny strands. They split out of his hands and curved backwards around him, like water out of a fountain. It seemed to be effective as the fountain of mana was acting like a barrier the curse couldn't penetrate through. Instead, it seemed to retreat, balling up on itself in a swirl of shadow. He wrapped his mana around it, trying to trap it. This was the final stage of the ritual before destroying a curse.

A smile spread on his face. He had it. It pressed back, but he held firm, pouring more mana into the spell. Another stone disintegrated. Two more remained. It was plenty. His smile vanished as the pressure grew, building and building until it was a crushing force. Suddenly, that force turned sharp. The curse stabbed the bulwark of mana he'd created, then followed the connection. It prodded through the barrier, as if it was probing for weak points.

Masterfully, he redirected his mana, deflecting and parrying every attempt at it passing his guard. He pushed out as hard as he could. The last two Manastones around his neck made a popping sound as they disintegrated into clouds of blue dust. The cold within his chest grew and flooded through his body and hand. This wasn't supposed to happen! His chest felt as if it was freezing from the inside. It was excruciating. His barrier broke down.

He blasted the curse one last time and ejected the void with monumental ferocity. The black curse flew across the room hissing and fizzing. Discretion was clearly now completely out the window. Aaron dropped to the floor in exhaustion. He wanted to run to his brother, but his legs gave way in exhaustion.

"Aaron, your tome!" Tim shouted. Aaron was beyond caring about making noise at this point. Dark smoke streamed from his tome where he'd dropped it nearby. In a panic, he grabbed it, ready to swat out a blaze… yet there was no fire. The cover was shifting, the blue leather turning darker and more sinister. Inside, a page was glowing. Aaron opened it, and there, he saw the end of his life's work etched in ink. [Class evolution in progress] New class: Necromancer Rank: Novice Necromancer.

It was a term he had only heard of from stories. A class so terrifying that it was used to scare children. There were some additional words underneath, but they were faded and blurry. The tome had shown him temporary notifications like this before. Lesser Balance Spirit Removed due to incompatibility Cleanse Curse Removed due to incompatibility Soothe Pain Removed due to incompatibility Level 10 Spirit Sight compatible. Requirements met for upgrade. Reset to Level 1 TRUE SIGHT. Removed?!

Aaron read the page again, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He lay on the floor in exhaustion. He'd never heard of anyone losing their abilities in a class evolution. Perhaps he could still call upon his Healer skills. They had always come to him so easily, with only a thought, yet now he felt nothing. Aaron panicked and strained harder to reach for a healing spell. But nothing came. He dreaded to think what the curse had done to his magic.

Years of hard work had been reset back to a novice of a different class entirely. He'd heard of class evolutions in the past, but it was never anything like this. Action created evolution. A Swordsman might become a Duelist. An Elementalist into a Pyromancer. A problem for later. Tim was the priority for now, Aaron told himself. Too exhausted to move, Aaron could only lie there. His chest felt as if it was filled with ice and his body was almost completely drained of mana.

Tim was looking down at him with sadness in his eyes. It was unnecessary. All of the magical consumables he had saved for were destroyed, his class might have changed, but it had all been for this purpose. For saving his brother. Whatever the sacrifice, Aaron could live with it, even if that meant he was a Necromancer. That didn't change him. He wouldn't become a killer, let alone an evil overlord. He'd done what he'd set out to do. The curse was beaten.

Aaron mustered up the strength to force out a reassuring smile back at him to let him know he was okay.

"How… does it… feel?" Aaron asked between breaths.

"Something's wrong," Tim said. Aaron forced himself up, relief turning to fear.

"What do you feel?"

"It's still there! I can feel—" Tim screamed. His back arched in bed until only his feet and shoulders were in contact. Black veins ran up his neck, bulging from his skin.

"Tim!" Aaron rushed to his side. He tried to reactivate the spell, but it wasn't there anymore. He'd lost his ability to heal.

"Tim! Can you hear me?" Tim's body slammed back to the bed, the veins rescinding. He lay there, breathing heavily, sweat beading across his face.

"I'm sorry, Aaron," Tim whispered.

"It didn't work." Aaron clutched his hand, tears in his eyes.

"I'll find a way, Tim. I swear. This isn't over." Yet even as he said the words, he thought of his book. He'd lost all of his healing skills and had a new class. How was he going to remove Tim's curse now? And what did his evolved True Sight ability do? Knock knock"Is everything alright in there?" A girl's soft voice called through the door. Aaron's heart was swallowed into a bit. The last thing he needed was to get caught.