Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 2

Chapter 2

That’s a lot of people.

The last time he had gone to the Crestline Gorge Dungeon with Gregory and his party, there had been a line leading up to the entrance, and they had been forced to wait for their turn; it hadn’t been that much of a hardship, as there couldn’t have been more than 50 people waiting for their turn at one time.

Now, however, there were at least 10 times that number.  The previous “line” that had held the different small parties waiting to head inside was replaced by large, differentiated sections that had a clearly defined separation, with each of the roughly oval spaces surrounded by a perimeter of rope attached to metal stakes driven into the rocky ground.  There appeared to be a total of 15 different spaces marked out for different groups, all set up in a general line that led toward the entrance, but at the moment there were only 5 of these segregated areas filled with people.

As he tried to figure this all out, he noticed something about the different groups of people standing around chatting with each other or sitting down and playing dice and cards here and there.  He hadn’t noticed it before now, as in the city and in the Adventurer Coalition lobby things were busy and a bit chaotic, but where the nametags of each of the people were situated above their heads, there was faint hint of a colored aura.  It wasn’t anything like the black aura that surrounded those that killed other Contenders, as this was faint and was only noticeable once he actually concentrated on it. 

That was what prompted the change in his observations of their nametags.

Amanda {Pursuit of Excellence}

Human

Level 149

Martin {Pursuit of Excellence}

Human

Level 150

Jessica {Pursuit of Excellence}

Human

Level 148

>>>>> 

>>>>> 

Havarn {Pursuit of Excellence}

Human

Level 151

Pursuit of Excellence?  I’m guessing that is their Guild?  Each of the Contenders he looked at within one of the sections had the {Pursuit of Excellence} tag next to their name, as well as a faint yellow aura surrounding it.  When he looked at the other waiting groups, he saw {Hounds of Hell} with a faint reddish aura, {Divine Judgment} with a light yellow aura, {Nature’s Bounty} with a greenish tint to the aura, and a purplish aura coming from a group from the same Guild that had just rejected him, {Vibrance}.  It was noticing this last group that ultimately confirmed that these were all separate Guild Raid Parties queuing up to enter the dungeon; each Raid Party was exclusively only a single Guild with no one else seemingly tagging along without a Guild affiliation, nor were there any Parties with mixed Guilds. 

A few seconds of checking the Levels of everyone he could reasonably make out among the crowd revealed that the lowest Level amongst them was Level 141, while the highest was Level 156; from the updated Rankings and what he’d seen around the city, he suspected that this Level range was likely about the average for most Contenders – at least in Region #1, which had a head-start on their progression because of the accelerated start of Developmental Phase 2.

As he finished up his perusal of the area and was about to head toward the empty corral behind the {Pursuit of Excellence} Guild, there was a commotion near the dungeon as people started pouring out of the entrance.  If he remembered correctly, there was an exit on the other side of the Gorge when the dungeon was completed, at least for non-Intermediate version, so he could only assume that these new people hadn’t completed it and instead went back through the entrance to escape.  That assumption quickly became the obvious truth when he saw that those exiting the dungeon appeared ragged, with tears or dents in their armor, bloodstains covering their exposed skin, and a clear indication that many of them were wounded as they limped or carefully cradled broken arms.

More than that, however, was the fact that the majority of the relatively healthy individuals flowing out of the entrance were carrying bodies. 

Geneva (Deceased – 44:12/404:12 Remaining) {Chaos Valor}

Human

Level 147

>>>>> 

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Christian (Deceased – 43:45/403:45 Remaining) {Chaos Valor}

Human

Level 152

It took him a few seconds to figure out what he was seeing among the nametags of the deceased members of the {Chaos Valor} Guild.  If he was correct in his assumption, the first countdown was how long they still had in order to be Resurrected by Thaden, while the second was likely the new Charee individuals in the cities and towns that could resurrect those who were brought to them.  He nodded to himself as he reasoned that this was fairly accurate, as his Superior Resurrection could bring someone back within 6 hours of their deaths, while the latter reportedly brought people back within 12 hours.   It also meant that it had been over 5 hours since most of those he saw had died, and all of them had been within minutes of each other.

It quickly became clear how the situation had gotten to that point, because of everyone still alive, most of them were Mages and Control Classes, who were forced to carry the heavy bodies of their Guildmates back with them, while they were still injured, themselves.  There weren’t any Support Classes obviously alive, though he saw a handful of them that had died at some point – which cleared up the reason no one had been resurrected and the injuries were still present.  Either they didn’t have healing potions or had used them all already; he put his money on the latter. 

The worst part of the scene was the fact that all of the bodies he saw had been crushed and mangled to the point where they were barely recognizable as people.  Even those who were obviously Fighter Classes with their flashy armor hadn’t been spared, and while the armor would eventually repair itself over time if it hadn’t been destroyed completely, it couldn’t stop their owners from seemingly being flattened or torn apart.

Standing in shock at the appearance of these beaten-down and dead Contenders, as he could barely comprehend how they could’ve ended up like that, he was in for another shock when none of the other Guild Raid Parties moved to help.  They stared impassively at {Chaos Valor} as they practically collapsed a short way from the entrance, their exhausted-looking bodies seemingly giving up on carrying the corpses with them anymore.  Their indifference was so surprising that he halfway expected them to start bad-mouthing the defeated-looking Raid Party, but their absolute refusal to help or even acknowledge the pain and suffering they were going through was bad enough.

This Guild-to-Guild competition is crazy.  I guess that refusing to help those who are injured or resurrecting the dead doesn’t count as interference, so they just let the other Guilds deal with their own problems.  In a way, he supposed it made sense; the deed had already been done, and those who were still injured likely wouldn’t die.  For those who were dead, there were still hours to go before they couldn’t be resurrected anymore, which everyone else could clearly see when they looked at the nametags of the deceased.  To the minds of the other Guilds, there was no reason to get involved and help.

That didn’t mean it was right.

His dwindling faith in Humanity, which had been bolstered after the whole situation with Contender-on-Contender murder had been curtailed by the black aura punishments handed out by the Assimilation System, was heartened a tiny bit when he saw a number of Support Classes within the waiting Guilds twitching and looking at their fellow members as if they wanted to start healing, but they were told with curt glances and shakes of heads not to do anything of the sort.  It was nice to see that at least some people still had a heart and didn’t completely deny their instinct to heal someone in pain, though he was disappointed that no one even snuck in a subtle Regeneration spell or two on the injured Contenders. 

Fortunately for the {Chaos Valor} Guild, Thaden wasn’t in a Guild and couldn’t give a crap about Guild politics.  He wasn’t going to stand around and watch them suffer when he could easily do something about it.

He already slotted in his Superior Resurrection spell into his Access Slots before he was even halfway across the distance, and it wouldn’t take long for the Cooldown to end so he could start bringing them back.  When he was still 100 feet away, Thaden started to heal everyone, spamming Superior Regeneration on everyone that wasn’t dead; he had other healing spells that might patch them up faster, but with how much his Regeneration spell healed them with all of his bonuses, they would be back to full in 5 seconds.

“What are you doing?” shouted one of the Mages from {Chaos Valor} as he likely felt the Regeneration take effect on him, and Thaden slowed down right on the edge of the group. 

Jacob {Chaos Valor}

Human

Level 154

As he inspected the man, out of the corner of his eye he saw the {Vibrance} Guild start filing into the entrance of the dungeon, disappearing once they passed through the hazy distortion that marked its presence, without more than a few looks back at what was happening with Thaden and {Chaos Valor}.  The other Guilds started to migrate up one space to occupy the one that {Vibrance} had vacated.

“Healing you,” the Solitary Shaman replied after a moment.  “I thought that would be obvious,” he added with a chuckle.  With a more serious tone, and as he waited for the cooldown for his Superior Resurrection to end, he asked, “Do you want me to bring your people back?”

To his surprise, Jacob shook his head.  “No, we can’t afford that.  The price for resurrections in the city are the only ones the Guildmaster has authorized.”  The mage looked at Thaden again and tilted his head to the side as if the Shaman was a mystery.  “Besides, the timer should’ve already expired on any Resurrection spell you can cast; it took us entirely too long to retreat from the Assault Wave section in there,” he added in exasperation, slumping his shoulders in defeat.  As he did that, he seemed to realize that the arm that had been broken was now healed, as Thaden’s Regeneration had done its work.  “Uh… how strong are your healing spells?  Wait… Superior Regeneration?  How—?”

“They’re quite strong; stronger than anyone else you’d be able to find among the Contenders,” he boasted.  Normally, he’d try to downplay his abilities, but an idea had formed as soon as he decided to help the {Chaos Valor} Guild.  “I even have a strong enough Resurrection spell and high enough Cooldown reduction that I can bring everyone back before the timer runs out.”

Jacob hesitated for a moment, as he seemed to be highly impressed by Thaden’s spells, but he eventually shook his head as many of the other Guild members who had been healed by Thaden began to gather around.  He caught a number of thanks from them before Jacob ultimately said, “Again, I appreciate the offer, but we can’t afford the standard non-Guild Resurrection rate.  But thanks to your healing, we shouldn’t have any problems getting back to the city with our dead.”

Now it was Thaden’s turn to shake his head.  “I don’t charge anything for resurrecting, so it shouldn’t be any problem for you.”

“You’d do it for free?” one of the other Guild members, a Control Class of some sort, asked, which was echoed by many of the others. 

Jacob was gaping at him in shock.  “You would do that for us?”

“Well… not completely.  I need help with completing my Evolution Assignment,” he admitted.  “In other words, I have to find a Raid Party and complete a Level 160 Intermediate dungeon on—”

“Yeah, I know what the Evolution Assignment is for Support Classes,” Jacob cut him off.  “Why hasn’t your Guild helped you with that?”

Thaden spread his hands in helplessness.  “I don’t have a Guild.”

“Why not?  You’re obviously a powerful healer and—”  Jacob was cut off when one of his Guildmates put her hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.  Thaden couldn’t hear it all, but he heard mention of his Class and PICK, so he could guess what it was about.  The Mage’s face went slack in understanding, before he eventually shook his head reluctantly.

“I’m sorry, I can’t authorize that kind of thing.  We’ll have to settle for taking our people back to the city,” he said.

“But—”

“As much as I would like to take you up on your offer, the {Chaos Valor} Guild will have to pass.”

Frustration was welling up in him.  “But there’ll be no chance of anyone getting hurt or dying while I’m in the Raid Party!  It wouldn’t be a risk to anyone; at most, it would only be a loss of a few hours of time!”

Jacob was clearly apologetic, but he acted like his hands were tied.  “You can speak to our Guildmaster at some point and ask about the possibility, but I can’t speak for him.”  He paused as he looked around, before taking a deep breath.  “Thank you for the unasked-for healing; like I said, I really do appreciate the help, but we’ve got to get going.”  With that, he directed the other Guild members to start gathering up their dead, which went much better than when they first arrived outside of the dungeon, while Thaden simply stared after them with his jaw clenched in anger.

He was going to start resurrecting the corpses anyway, as he’d originally intended to do, but he eventually turned away and headed toward the roped-off areas instead.  If they didn’t want his help, then he didn’t feel like giving it to them.  All he asked for was a little assistance with completing his Evolution Assignment, but they wouldn’t even consider it.  He wasn’t exactly one to extort healing or aiding with resurrections from those in need, but he thought that it was a reasonable enough request that Jacob might at least say that he would see what he could do, but it didn’t work out the way he was hoping.

Annoyed and trying to let his frustration over the situation go, he stood by himself along the edge of the section behind the {Pursuit of Excellence} Guild, receiving odd looks from those ahead of him.  Before, when he had been disguising himself, he would get curious, angry, or greedy looks when people saw him; afterwards, the range of emotions included jealousy and thankfulness as they realized who he was.  Now, though, what he received was simply derision mixed with indifference.

“You know you can’t hold your Guild’s place without at least 50% of your Raid Party present, don’t you?” one of the {Pursuit of Excellence} members asked ahead of him, sniggering at what was apparently Thaden’s incompetence.

His temper was short at that moment, but he attempted to reign it in.  “Well then, it’s a good thing all 100% of my Raid Party is here, isn’t it?”

The one who had sniggered at him continued laughing; if anything, he only laughed harder, joined by some of his compatriots.  “Oh, are they invisible?  Because all I see here is a lonely Support!”

“That’s right, it’s just me.”

Thaden could see that the man and his friends didn’t believe him as they turned away still laughing, and he was tempted to show off his spells to prove them wrong.  Taking a deep breath to avoid getting himself into trouble, ignored the glances in his direction and forced the whispered words about him away from his hearing.

They would certainly change their tune when they saw him complete the Intermediate Raid Party dungeon by himself, if they even believed that he’d done it afterwards.  For now, he blocked out any other distractions as he finally devoted some time to ensuring that he was as ready to go as possible.  He’d been so focused on finding a way to complete his Evolution Assignment that he’d let some choices he’d needed to make go by the wayside. 

And then, he was determined to finally play around with the prizes he’d gotten for coming in first in multiple Ranking lists. 

He smiled to himself as he used the time he had to wait for the dungeon to play with the fun stuff.