Wandering Agent
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Chapter 167 Re-arming
🕑 Added 2022-08-17 02:59:47 +0000 UTCSetting things up for Robert was simple enough. Our new elven comrade had to be basically force fed as much and as nutritionally dense food as was physically possible, and a small crowd of the villagers had to be gathered as well. Leah was on standby as he explained exactly what he needed from everyone while we waited just outside his house.
"Alana, have you ever taken part in regrowing limbs before?" Robert asked.
"Yes, we did a bit of that in school, but it was pretty slow. You said you could quickly?"
Back when I'd been taking classes we'd had a basic class on healing and so I was at least passingly familiar with the process of regrowing a limb. Then though it had been a weeks long process of fixing and then allowing the body time to recover, even in rushed circumstances, it still took weeks.
"I said I could do a hack job, and I can. Under normal conditions you need time for the body to regain energy while you regrow limbs, but we don't have that, so we're going to sort of force it. Ormien here is going to be shoving as much food as he can down his throat while I fix him up." He pointed to the elf who was even now drinking what looked like some kind of gross slurry prepared by Leah. "My dear sister there will be using her magic to speed his intake of food, and while she is I want you go work on the skin, it's the easiest part and frankly I've never seen you work before, so..."
"So you don't trust me to do anything serious at the speed you need, understood." He did look sorry at implying I might not know what I was doing, but this magic was his specialty and well beyond my personal capabilities in healing. If we'd been doing illusions or weather magic I'd probably have relegated him to something minor too.
"Oh, that tastes terrible," Ormien said as he finally finished the last of what he needed to eat for now.
"What's in it anyway?" I felt I might regret the question, but I was curious.
"Mostly meat, salt, water, bones, and whatever sugar you can shove in. We used honey back home, but here they have the nice stuff. Reduce all to roughly the consistency of thin mud and cook well," Leah answered.
"It smells like barf," I commented.
"Also tastes like barf," Ormien agreed.
"Well, don't get squeamish now," Robert said, pointing to a bucket sitting beside his sister. "You'll need to finish that one while we're working. If you can't drink through the pain we'll stop, but that is seriously less than ideal." The elven man nodded, seemingly resolved.
"Question," I said, looking towards our healer. "Why isn't this done for everyone? If it's so much faster?"
"Because you'd have to be able to use physical magic to even survive it." Robert rubbed his head before turning to his patient. "I'll be pretty blunt here too, your new arm will be weaker than if we'd done this the right way, but I don't want to wait around for weeks. It should improve to where it would be normally eventually, and a priest can probably speed that along, but this is going to be a measure to get you fighting ready now."
As our preparation finished the elder had returned with a number of the merchants and people from the village. We had explained before that we'd need more people for the gestalt casting, since this was going to be a rather hard bit of magic, and they'd not disappointed. I was actually really surprised by how many people showed up looking happy to see Ormien now sober and ready to get fighting again.
"You'd think they'd be madder at him for getting drunk and acting a jerk," I said to Ulanion as Robert got everyone split into groups.
"Yeah, I notice that about humans. Thing is, elves live a lot longer though." He laughed at the look on my face.
"So? He still spent what, a year or so locked up drinking or whatever?"
"Couple probably, but if you live for centuries a couple years isn't that bad. Would you be glad if someone you knew came out of a months long depression when you really needed them? Or would you be mad? What if it was only a few weeks after the loss of a loved one, lot more understandable right?"
I hadn't thought of it like that, but I suppose if you lived so much longer than stuff like this did seem slightly less... bad? "I suppose that makes sense. Particularly if he was well liked..."
The archer smiled and moved to his place in our little grouping.
We began the work that was needed with gusto, Robert being the first. As he began pounding on a borrowed drum our patient buckled on the chair we'd sat him on. We didn't have anything to give him for the pain, saving alcohol, and nobody thought getting him drunk for this would be advisable, so he had to deal with it. After the initial jerk though, Ormien grit his teeth and straightened back into position.
Within moments the skin on his missing arm bulged and popped as the bone pushed its way through, reforming without the other tissues around it. It was horrid-looking as blood flowed, only for muscles to worm their way out and around, pulling blood vessels with them on their way.
Before I could start returning his skin Ormien reached down and guzzled as much of the nutrient drink as he could. I couldn't see it, but I could hear Leah working to the side and supposed she must have gotten enough running through his system to let him be hungry again. I also sighed in relief.
Soon as he put down the bucket I started up my own song, backed like my peers by a number of volunteers I sang, returning the layers of skin and covering to his currently bare upper arm. It was fortunate that he'd managed to get more in his system before I started, because he was getting all the nerves brought back in a hurry. By the time I was halfway through he was screaming, and there was only more to go.
As the upper arm finished we kept on. It was surreal to watch as in real time bone pulsed forward only to be covered in successive layers of tissue. The lower arm went much as the upper, but near the end I could see Robert start to pause. This was going to be the worst part and we all knew it.
"How many times do I have to tell you boy. I'm in for this, keep going." Our patient had stopped yelling only long enough to relay what he needed to to his would-be healer.
"Then drink," Robert answered, apparently he had some kind of monitoring spell.
The elven man reached back down and drained the last of the gross bucket before looking back to us. He and Robert exchanged nods, and the last of the work began. All the delicate bits of the hand flowed into place, snapping together speedily. While this work was more agonizing to Ormien, and more detailed, it was at least a smaller area. I pushed the limits of my own healing, letting the skin quickly build like a wave over the new flesh.
As his hand returned Ormien screamed like a dying man. His good hand went white-knuckled as he held onto the chair, the wood giving way under his strength. While to us the restoration probably only took around half an hour to him it must have seemed like ages. When it was finally done and We withdrew our magic he sighed in relief, looking down to where he'd crushed part of his seat into naught but sawdust, and his new arm.
It... well it wasn't pretty. The flesh was very, very pale, as one might expect, and looked like freshly healed wound rather than how it should look. As the newly re-armed elf moved his new appendage here and there I could see he was having difficulties. His coordination was slightly off, but slowly improving as he practiced touching his fingers together.
"How is it?" Robert asked.
"Kinda itches." That got a snort from several in the crowd, self included.
"Sincerely though, is there any pain, how is the flexibility?" Our healer was professional if nothing else.
A few more flexes and taps before the small crowd and he looked up. "Doesn't move quite like the last one, or perhaps it's because I haven't had one to move in awhile. No pain though, but a bit stiff."
"I told you it wouldn't be great. It should improve with time."
With a few move quick movements and a smile Ormien turned and walked back into his house, returning a few moments later with a sword in hand. He gave a look towards Glen, who'd taken up a position to the side.
"Mind giving me a few quick rounds to knock the rust off?" While they moved off to an open area the rest o us gathered up.
"We don't know enough about this beast yet, but there's sadly only one way we're getting much more information. So I want everyone to be prepared before sundown, the elder indicated to me that it often appears near the wall after dark," Olnir began, laying out some plans for us.
"Prepared for what exactly? If we don't even know what the thing is." Selene wasn't much in the fighting department, even if she did have good instincts when it came to items.
"To hunt of course," I answered.
A/N: Hi everyone! I'm now back from my vacation with a fresh case of covid. It's been ton's of fun, but doesn't really stop me from writing. So I'll be delivering on my three chapters promise for this week. Expect the extra one either tomorrow or Thursday, along with the standard Friday chapter
