Chương 2: True Sight

The brothers looked at each other in a panic as the knock on the door came again.

"Are you okay in there? I heard yelling! Do you need me to get help?" The door handle rattled as the girl tried to open the door.

"No, I'm fine," Aaron shouted back. The threat of a group of healers being called to his room ignited any energy he had left in him. He couldn't let anyone find out.

"Hang on a sec, I'm coming." Gripping onto the side of the bed, he dragged himself to his feet, scooping his now black tome up in the process. He quickly shoved it, still smoking slightly, into his bag along with the glass flask and any hints of the de-cursing ritual he could quickly hide. His head was pounding from exhaustion, but he powered through and opened the door just enough to see the brown haired girl from the laundry room. She was wearing a smart black knee length skirt and a white tunic.

Her face was fair and her skin was smooth and youthful. She must have been a similar age to Aaron, but he had never seen her before on the wards. This evening was the first time he'd seen her, but then again, he rarely had a reason to visit the basement.

"Hello, sorry for the trouble. I'm Healer Aaron Barrows. There's nothing to worry about, I just stubbed my toe on the table." She narrowed her eyes.

"What are you doing here after hours?" Aaron held up his bag and let out a nervous laugh.

"Just forgot my bag. All done now, so I'll be heading home." The girl frowned suspiciously, then leaned to the side to look past him into the room.

"Who is your friend?" Aaron's face dropped. She must have seen Tim earlier as well.

"Don't worry Aaron, show her in," Tim called from behind him. Aaron's smile twitched. What was Tim planning? It wasn't like he could do anything about it now, so he opened up the door fully to reveal Tim sitting up on the bed using his black cane for support. He raised his brow at his brother—Tim better have a good idea.

"Hello," the girl said cautiously.

"Hi, I'm Tim. I was taken unwell tonight and my brother here brought me in to help me. I'll be honest, we don't have the money for the fees so he did the healing spell himself." He put his hands together and smiled.

"Will you please keep our secret?" Of course that was what Tim was going for… Honesty! Aaron was thankful he was facing away from the girl. His expression would have almost certainly given away the lie. It was a gamble appealing to the girl's goodwill when he barely knew her. She could lose her job for keeping a secret like this. Everyone who worked in the infirmary knew it was against protocol to treat family and friends off the books, but many of them did it anyway.

Most of the masters turned a blind eye, except for Master Addison, who was much more strict with the rules and preferred to take payment at the front door before taking anyone in.

"Don't worry," the girl said sweetly.

"I won't tell anyone. But are you both ok? I did hear some yelling." She glanced at Aaron's feet, clearly noting the leather boots.

"You must have kicked the bed particularly hard to stub your toes in those."

"Thank you so much," Tim said.

"That was me, I'll admit. The treatment was a little more painful than I expected."

"We're all done though." Aaron forced a smile, but inside his worry for his brother was eating him up. They weren't done at all. Not even close. Disaster was a generous way of putting it. Not only was Tim still cursed, but now Aaron had no idea if his evolved class even had the capability to cure it.

"If you're sure," the girl said, seeming satisfied with their answers.

"You better both get going soon. There's been a few emergencies tonight and the masters are about." They didn't need to be told twice. They bid the girl goodnight, locked the door, and left the building.

The failings of the ritual haunted Aaron through the night and into the next day. He had planned everything out perfectly and gathered as much information as possible. Years of work and effort had gone into this one night, yet it had all gone so terribly wrong he didn't even know where to start. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Healer?" Why did his class evolve to a Necromancer?

"Healer?!" He'd read about mages laying traps on their curses, but nothing that could evolve someone's class. Was he cursed now as well? He didn't feel cursed, but it had been a slow process for Tim too.

"Healer Barrows, I'm going to be sick!" Aaron snapped back into reality. The pungent aroma of the clinic, the quiet groans and coughs of his patients and the surgical, almost sharpness of the magical white lights all hit him at once. Aaron never understood why they burned herbs and incense; the room only ever ended up smelling like manure but mixed with sickly sweet smoke. He quickly grabbed a metal pot from under Mr Philip's bed and placed it on his lap.

He helped him sit forwards, just in time for a torrent of yellow-brown vomit to eject from the patient's mouth and violently hit the bottom of the bowl. Small amounts of residue splashed up and landed on Aaron's tunic. He shuddered internally whilst keeping a straight face and wiped it with his sleeve.

"Don't worry, sir, this is all part of the healing process. As the soul heals, the body follows. This is your way of removing the corruption and part of your journey to feeling well again." Aaron squeezed Mr Philip's shoulder, reciting the age-old line for at least the tenth time that day. He'd always joked with his friends that he should work with the mages to create a brooch for his tunic which played these words every time he pressed it.

With flushed red cheeks, tears in his eyes and a string of snot hanging from his nose, Mr Philips pleaded, "Please Healer Barrows, is there anything that will make me feel better until this sickness passes?" Aaron was afraid of what his powers would do after yesterday and hadn't mustered up the courage to look through his tome in more detail than simply reading the titles of his new skills and schools of magic, but he took pity on Mr Philips.

"Let me see what I can do." He left the clinic room and turned left through a worn pine door into a small rest area. His bag was hung on a peg at the back of the room amongst several others. He checked carefully to see if anyone was looking before pulling the black tome out of his bag. Aaron turned through several blank pages until he reached a section titled "Abilities".

He had previously mastered a number of basic abilities, such as Lesser Cure Ailment and a basic pain relief spell, which he thought might help his patient's nausea but they were missing and replaced with two new spells, Manipulate and Osteokinesis. He still didn't truly believe it, but it was in front of him now, in clear black ink. What in the gods' name!? Aaron read closer. Spell Name: Manipulate Spell school: Somatomancy Spell class: Necromancer Level: 1 Description: Interact with and manipulate flesh.

Users with knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathology level this skill faster and may cast a more potent effect. Use: Innate casting * Spell Name: Osteokenesis Spell School: Somatomancy Level: 1 Description: Stitches the caster's mana through bones, allowing them to be commanded and manipulated. Use: Runecrafting Seeing them both at Level 1 was almost as upsetting as the new class entirely. All of his skills were gone. Lesser Balance Spirit, Cleanse Curse, Soothe Pain. Everything was missing.

He had never heard of Somatomancy, but his understanding of linguistics told him that it was something to do with the body. None of this would be useful to relieve his patient's nausea and he didn't have time to go through the book in detail reading about this new spell school. He was always taught that the foundation of healing the body is to first heal the soul and more severe disruption to physiology required more powerful, or even multiple healers to resolve.

Interacting with the body directly and bypassing the soul was practically unheard of. He had never seen anyone move flesh and bone with their magic before, unless you count external force like wind or psychic spells, both of which usually resulted in more harm than good. These abilities weren't going to help him, at least not safely. And he wasn't about to use Mr Phillips to experiment. Still, he had to try something. He felt a duty to his patient.

Luckily, his sight ability was still intact, in fact, it had evolved. It was his best trained ability previously, allowing him to sense the ailment in a man's spirit from the other end of the room. It was deeply coveted by the other apprentices. But it felt different somehow. He figured it was just more powerful. There was no reason to suggest otherwise. Aaron walked back into the ward to his patient and placed his hand over his abdomen. He focused intently on the man's soul to try and decipher the ailment.

It usually took him a few heartbeats to figure out what was causing the imbalance in someone's soul. A deep chill rattled his bones as he used his True Sight ability. Aaron was taken aback by the sensation but kept it hidden as he wanted to maintain professionalism in front of his patient. He focused on the cold sensation and ran it through his hand. There were similarities to the way his old mana flowed.

It ran through his veins at will, and with it flowed power that made his body feel like it was bursting with energy. But where before it was warm and comforting, now it was like ice in his veins, though there was no discomfort. He turned his True Sight onto his patient.