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Chapter 284: Markus - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-08-21 10:50:19 +0000 UTCAfter I ran out of essence, I got another System notification. I had once again influenced the war between the worldstriders and humans by a [Minor] amount. I had to admit, I was glad to see the notification. However, running out of essence didn't mean I could rest. Even without my essence, I had spent years learning about medicine. I could still do basic field treatment for the soldiers, even with lacking supplies. Thus, I continued moving around the room, changing bandages for wounds and stitching up wounds.
Towards the back of the room, I found someone I knew well.
Markus.
Markus was laying in one of the beds for injured soldiers. He was alive, but he wasn’t in great condition. He was missing one of his legs. Whoever had treated him afterwards had given him a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. There was also some bruising on his head, although it didn't look life-threatening.
I ran over to him as I felt my heart start to pound. I had already spent all of my essence on the 'worst' injuries in the makeshift hospital. What if Markus needed healing and I couldn't provide it? I felt deep anxiety well up in my heart. The idea of a friend dying because I didn’t have enough essence to save them made my stomach churn.
The first thing I did was check his heartbeat. His pulse was stable and strong, which quelled much of my fear. It didn’t seem like he was about to die. After that, I swapped to my soul sight, to see if he had any soul injuries or problems.
His soul was still stably attached to his brain. There was no sign of disconnection at all. Markus's soul looked completely normal. I breathed a sigh of relief. Markus may not have been in perfect condition… but he was still alive. All of his injuries were easy to heal using my healing magic, so I didn't need to fear long-term problems. I could heal him after I regenerated some essence.
Until I regenerated some essence, I would need to do more basic things. I started out by checking his bandages and bruises. The bandages were a little bit dirty, but that wasn't a surprise, given the supply shortage. I also sent in a few drops of alteration essence, just to see what happened when I tried to heal him. This led me to find a few very small pieces of shrapnel still lodged in his leg. Since I would need to cut them out, I decided to ignore them for now. Removing them would cause more harm than help, unless I had my essence ready to fix the wound.
I spent a few minutes sitting down and letting my body regenerate some essence, before I started dribbling essence into Markus’s body.
Some smaller aspects of Markus’s wounds started to zip closed. It was nowhere near regrowing his leg, but I was still determined to help reduce the scope of his injuries as much as I could.
As I was finishing up, Markus’s eyes fluttered open.
“Miria?” he asked.
“Markus? You should go back to sleep.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you here. How’s Trish? How are the others?”
“Dr. Trish is worried out of her mind. As for the others...” I hesitated. "Old Mo had an accident."
Markus’s forehead furrowed. “What happened? Is he all right?”
“I don’t know. His heart gave out while we were visiting him at the restaurant. He also seems to have suffered some brain damage after his heart gave out..." I shuddered. "We managed to replace his heart with a prosthetic one, so he isn't in immediate danger of dying. But he isn't waking up, and I can't heal whatever is wrong. I did everything I could, and Dr. Trish is looking after him, but…” I shuddered as I trailed off. Finally, I sighed. “At least you and Dr. Trish are alive. Your injuries are completely fixable. My ability doesn’t have any problems with regenerating limbs like your leg, unless you wanted to swap it out for metal.”
“I’d prefer to keep my legs made of flesh. I was born with a small essence pool, so prosthetics would be hard for me to use.” Then, Markus leaned over to me, and wrapped me in a hug. “Sorry about Old Mo. I know that he means a lot to you, but sometimes, old age creeps up on people. He’s… what, eighty?” Markus shook his head as he released me from the hug. “Still, I hope he pulls through. Dr. Trish will take good care of him, and your healing will also help. He'll get through this.”
“I hope so,” I said, as I leaned into the hug.
“Though, that brings to mind one other question. If Old Mo is hurt, I would expect you to be by his side. Why are you here?”
“To confirm your safety, and to chip in,” I said. “I did everything I could for Old Mo, but my healing ability can’t fix him. Sitting there and feeling helpless feels… bad. Once I learned that you were hurt too, we rushed over here. I want to keep you safe if I can. Since there's nothing I can do for Old Mo right now...” I sighed. "Besides, I'm surprisingly good in a fight." At least, as long as I use extinguishes to help out.
“Damilius lucked out when you moved here, then. You’re a sweet girl, Miria.” Markus closed his eyes and then grinned. “I’m glad that you’re here… even if I’m also not glad that you’re here.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that a warzone is no place for a sixteen year old with a healing ability and no good ways to defend herself,” said Markus, as his gaze narrowed. His grin disappeared as he glared at me. “You might think you're 'surprisingly good' in a fight, but these things are monsters. They'll hurt you and they're hard to hurt back." Then, Markus's glare turned into a frown. "Wait, you said ‘we’ rushed over? Did Anise and Felix come too? Did you drag Amelia along with you as well?”
“Just Anise and Felix. Amelia is… busy.” Busy being Anise's alter ego, that is.
Markus sighed, before he shook his head. “You three should have stayed away from the warzone. But I still appreciate you coming out here to help me. On the bright side, the front lines look like they might become safer pretty soon.”
“Safer?” I asked, perking up. “Do you know anything about the ‘secret weapon? One of the other soldiers told me about how some soldiers heard eerie singing in the night. Whenever the sound appeared, all of the worldstriders fell unconscious.”
Markus laughed. “The secret weapon? Is that what they’re calling it? I suppose.” He sighed, before he looked at the missing half of his leg, and sighed. “When I got hurt, we were trying to guard the technicians while they repaired a railroad. The worldstriders dropped a freaking bomb on us. Killed a couple soldiers, and also sent me flying." His gaze became oddly thoughtful, as he looked at his missing leg again. "As I was in the air, I remember thinking that some poor fellow had lost his leg, because I saw it flying through the air. Then I realized it was my leg. It took a few more seconds for me to hit the ground, and then the pain finally registered.
"I was bleeding a lot, and I thought I wasn’t going to make it. But then, I heard a rather… unnatural sound. It was similar to a rough, squelching sound, mixed with metal gears groaning against each other. I saw… something moving around the battlefield right afterwards. It was... fast. It looked unnatural, too. It almost looked like a woman, but... wrong. It was like a woman with no eyes or mouth, stitched together all wrong." Markus actually shuddered. "It was unnerving. But whatever the secret weapon was doing, it worked. After she joined the battle, those Zelyrian abominations started to drop out of the sky. All the sword wielders needed to do was run up to the sleeping creatures and stab them. It was the easiest fight I've ever seen, even if whatever I saw was disturbing." Markus paused. "If it works, I guess the military paid more attention to that than the aesthetics of their secret weapon. At least they found a way to turn the tables."
I found myself increasingly curious about what the military’s secret weapon was, but I didn’t have any further information. I asked Markus a few more questions, but his memories were too patchy and vague to get more information from. I sighed, but decided to just wait until I could learn more about the situation. If the military was actively deploying their secret weapon to the battlefield, it would probably be revealed soon. Still, something about Markus’s description struck me as a little… off.
Author’s Note:
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Comments
Rain
TFC
Syrahl
Yeah, we know the nation they left was doing top secret work on artificial humans (hello, Felix), which had some sort of benefit Im forgetting about. They would probably try to adapt the existing work to be useful in the Worldstrider conflict.
Colin Clark
Im thinking it’s an artificial being.
Irakli Jishkariani
Ooh, another from the market
