[SD:RtR] So You Want To Learn Healing - Chapter 3

With the introductions done, June manages to wrangle everyone into the Sand Bar. Which was easy enough to recognize as the big sign was painted up quite nice and besides that, was made of a plank of driftwood. Likely a part of some ship before it sank or got torn off. That or the owner of the pub had someone rough up a plank of wood to look like right. Who knows when magic exists.

Anyway, the group of ten are seated in a corner. Which sounds more exclusive than it actually is. The entire pub is split up into multiple faux rooms so that most seats are technically in a corner.

Once seared, Gem is the first ready, having scoped out the location earlier. “Oasis platter, please!”

Though it doesn’t take long for the others to order as well. Then, once that is out of the way and drinks are delivered, they get down to planning.

Inky, “So. Who has more info on the supposed raid?”

Joy raps her knuckle on the table, “I have some information. While I was making sure my supplies were stocked up in the Guild’s healer annex, I got the down low. It will be an official raid and the Guild leader will be going on it.

“Which is troubling. They’re a C rank. So, given they’re Lawbound and so unlikely to join in just for fun, that means they suspect there is a Blue threat in there.”

June frowns, “That could be trouble. Though if it is only them and they aren’t delaying or calling support, we should be fine. Though I definitely need healing magic. Can you introduce me to the Guild trainer?”

Joy nods, “Yep, they’re always looking for more healers. Same for buffers, so you know how it goes. I’ll probably get a kickback if you answer them correctly. IE, promise to focus on healing going forward. If you do so, I’ll slip a little your way.”

June shakes her head, “Sorry, I won’t lie like that.”

Joy shrugs, “Fair enough.”

Percy coughs, “Anyway, that gives us some parameters to work with. Since it is an official raid, we won’t be able to scum extra points as the system will keep track of contributions. Which at least means we won’t be scammed in turn.”

Emrys nods, “Yeah, we’ll be better off going off on our own. No reason to stick around others as last hits won’t matter.”

Samuel, “The System’s rules of engagement certainly do encourage competent adventurers to go out on their own. Which to be fair, is sort of the point, at least until whatever the end event is. Though it would have been interesting to be under the regular rules of engagement.”

Bell snorts, “Bah, if by rules, you mean a lack of them! I prefer that sort of thing, but that’s just how I roll. There’s a reason I chose my ancestry like I did.”

Percy shrugs, “And don’t try to tell her about how there actually are rules. We’ve had that argument. She simply doesn’t believe things like, ‘don’t get caught’, are actual rules.”

Samuel nods, “Fair. We can agree to disagree.”

Inky, “Anyway, which of you is the shot caller? I handle it for my team, seeing as they are my team. I didn’t really get who it might be from my chat with Gem.”

Samuel lets out a suffering sigh, “We don’t have one. Gem, I would say, is our nominal leader? But yeah, pure chaos locked. We do plan things out to some extent, but our fighting style is more anchored on me standing there while they react to what happens.”

Inky shakes her head, “I should have expected that. When there’s only one bound within a group, it tends to fall into their theme.”

Samuel straightens his back, “I’ll have you know that I try and keep the Order!”

Emrys snorts, “And I keep to Evil, June is all Good, and They’re Chaosbound. If anything, we’re a neutral party by fiat.”

Inky laughs, “Well, that’s a sight and a half! Going for Pure, are we? My team isn’t so ambitious. Fiendkin generally can’t afford it. Though I’m the closest, being the only Daemonkin.

“Not even Daemons all end up Pure Evil. They’re neutral Evil, which actually means just as likely to be Order or Chaos. Though admittedly, Evil is the alignment you’re most likely to get any flavor of. That’s why we picked it! And thankfully, being greedy for power is a form of Evil so it counts!” And she laughs.

Gem shrugs, “I say you can be in charge of fighting, but we reserve the right to some Chaos of our own.”

Inky shakes her head, “Fair enough. Not like I’m stupid enough to believe someone even slightly Chaos-aligned would follow my every order. Anyway, let’s get down to brass tacks on what this means.”

From there, the group begins to lay out what they can do and help they usually fight, right up until their meal arrives. Most of the food is normal enough pub fare. Fried food being a main component.

Gem’s meal, however, is a bit different. Their platter does contain a few components which are battered and fried. However, unlike the others, most of these things were vegetables. Not that there wasn’t any meat on their plates. Just that it was always as a feature of a vegetable dish, instead of the major component.

Inky raises an eyebrow, “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”

With their teeth that now look oddly sharp, Gem slices in half what looks like a battered brussel sprout with a thin slice of pork on top. Their teeth audibly click together. “Well, I wanted to try something unique to this place. After all, there must be a reason this place was popular and it seems that most regulars come here for the local plants. Though if you look around, you’ll notice most people already have their favorite. I simply decided to get what is basically the sampler.”

The others looked down at their own meals, all of which they could have gotten at any similar pub across the entire continent. This didn’t bring the mood down, though a few of them promised themselves to be a bit better at picking their meals going forward.

Inky shakes her head, “Well, I guess we should finish this up and go register at the guild as a single group.”

Which they do, though at the guild they do get a few looks. Partly because Gem’s group was the one to bring the information in that got the ball rolling. Though also because a group exclusively made of fiendkin isn’t exactly the most common thing either. One receptionist even asked June while the others were to the side of everything was alright with her group.

All those suspicions aside, it was easy enough to register for the raid and that the two teams would be working together. At which point, they’re informed the raid will be leaving before dawn tomorrow, so that they can reach the ruins before noon. Jeff grumbled a bit about having to wake up early, but everyone else was fine with this.

So with registration taken care of, Joy guides June over to where the healers are getting ready. “Hey George, got a potential here!”

A local scorpionkin stops shouting at the travellers who are making a mess of the efforts and strides over. “Who’d you trick into coming this time?”

Joy smirks, “No trick this time.” She points over her shoulder with her thumb, “June here was planning to learn healing to begin with.”

George squints at her, “What’s the catch?”

June, “I’m not going to focus on just healing. My main role on my group is actually buffer.”

George rolls his eyes, which he has eight of, “Of course. You do realize that simply because you can buff, doesn’t mean you can heal? Not everyone is as crazy as Joy here, warping fire into purification.”

June nods, “I can understand that. Though I will note, I’m of Water.”

George’s eyes go wide, “Then what in the lower planes are you doing with her? You do realize she isn’t one of you travellers trying for some sort of tragic backstory with a redemption arc? She wants to be Evil.”

June, “Well, for starters, my group is simply teaming up with her group because our leaders clicked. Though I could also say some platitudes about keeping an eye on them and trying to guide them to the light of that makes you feel better?”

George snorts, “Nah, you don’t need to pull my leg. I’ve seen stranger mashups. Now, are you looking for a simple heal spell you can spam or do you want to get the skill to heal more free-form.”

Joy frowns, “Well, I certainly wasn’t offered that!”

George, “And that’s because you aren’t at a point where you could make the choice. Maybe after you evolve your fire healing skill a few times you’ll be up for it. Not that you'd likely go for it, anyway. Freeform healing is basically sort of another version of Mana manipulation, except specialized. Which means it takes a lot more knowledge and time to use.”

Joy, “Ah, yeah, no thank you. Healing spam is the way to go for combat.”

June, “I can see why you say that, but I’d prefer free-form healing. Though is there enough time to learn it before the raid?”

George shrugs, “You already have some form of Mana manipulation, right?”

June, “Well, yeah, I’m the buffer for my party.”

George, “Then you should be able to pick it up. Not sure if you’ll get the actual skill though. You might be forced to evolve your manipulation skill to include healing. Mind you, that isn’t a bad thing, but you’ll get a better effect with a separate skill because it can stack on top of your manipulation skill as a multiplier of sorts.”

June, “Skills don’t stack like that.”

Joy frowns, “They don’t? I would figure that something like a fire manipulation skill would stack with a fire spell skill.”

June shrugs, “Oh, I’m not saying the effects don’t work together. Just that the stacking isn’t multiplicative. You’re simply adding the effects together, and most times not even perfectly. One plus one with skills can sometimes equal one and a half.”

George nods, “True enough on the surface of it. The trick is what’s being modified by the skills. Not that the multiplier is going to be crazy or anything and it decays. I guess it would be more appropriate to say the combination multiplies at an exponentially decaying rate.

“Though the actual key here is that, unlike many skills, healing works from two sides. Manipulating your own Mana and the Mana of your patient. Which is why there’s exponential decay. You aren’t adding more and more onto what you’re doing. Rather, you start low and slowly approach 100% control, but never reach it.”

June frowns, “That does make some sense. Though why can’t you get a similar thing with other magic?”

George shrugs, “While others can take control of your Mana, you can’t give them control. Healing gets around this because of its nature. So basically if your Mana is like an arm, then when healing, you get to use two arms. All while other magics that take control are instead using their own arm to control the other arm. Which not only means they’re still using a single arm, they aren’t even controlling it directly!”

June, “Well, that makes me feel better about my choice. Now what do I need to do?”

George and Joy both grin at each other. George gestures to Joy that she can say it and she laughs. “Well, we start by hurting things!”

June’s face goes blank, and slowly one of her eyebrows creeps its way up her face. “And you mean exactly what by that?”

George laughs, “This is literally the thing that makes most soft hearts drop out. Though more than a few of them still end up as healers. They just grab a Skill Book for it. Even if unlike buffs, healing Skill Books aren’t subsidized.

“See, any actual healing beyond stopping someone from bleeding is likely to cause damage before it heals it. Broken bone? Well, you’re going to need to drag it back into place, especially when it has started to heal wrong. 

“Thankfully, that isn’t as bad here as it is apparently for people in your world. Though bones begin healing A Lot faster here as well. Still, it generally means that unless you’re spot treating a broken bone right when it happens, you’re re-breaking said bone to reposition it.

“The same is true for skin and such. So, the first step to learn healing is to hurt someone. Only then can you fix things. I mean, think about it! Someone takes an arrow to the knee? A regular person’s body isn’t going to push that out while healing! You’ll have to extract it yourself, whether with magic or force, and only then can you remove the debuff. Thankfully, bones and such try to fit together so you don’t have to worry about getting it perfect.”

InkyCat And Her Crew - Chapter 2

Traveling Back To The Ruins - Chapter 4