Valens found the other Priest down in the church’s basent tending to the sick n. Sion carried the smile of a devoted man too invested in his godly duty, his pate shining under the lights cast by the few lamps flickering across the walls, both hands stretched over a middle-aged Miner whose feet were covered in bloody bandages.
Warm lights washed off from those hands in a shower of lifemana, most of it spilling aimlessly about the ground while a little part of it managed to find its way to the Miner’s pus-filled blisters who occasionally grunted whenever one of them popped and hissed.
It reeked here in the basent but having been through a Cursed Rift, Valens found it oddly refreshing as he rolled the sleeves of his sorry-looking coat. They exchanged a silent, albeit a little tense, nod with the Priest before he gazed about the place to find more imdiate cases that would demand his skills.
“Oh?” His mouth parted with a smile when he crossed eyes with one gruff-looking Miner who, even in bed, seed to have refused to part with his precious pipe and was holding it to his chest as one might hold a newborn baby. Valens walked over to him and leaned closer. “Not much sense in that, isn’t it?”
“Thought they’d kick you out the mont they see that little smile o’ yours.” Harlow winced slightly as he pulled himself to a sitting position with one hand on the bed, letting his legs dangle lifelessly down the edge as he managed a pained smile. “Guess if you try just enough, you can even get a wolf accepted into a flock of sheep.”
“I’m the wolf, then?” Valens said. “That’s so praise coming out of you.”
“And you’re so Healer walking into the ho of the Blessed Father.” Harlow took in a labored breath, and with chest rattling, he managed to give him a yellow-toothed grin. “Lies and deceit? Or was it that strange part o’ yours that seed to be interested in this bloody sickness?”
“Circumstances,” Valens said simply. “Sotis you have to make do with what you have in hand.”
“Damn right you do,” Harlow nodded. He seed to have aged a good ten years during the ti Valens chased the shadows off of that mountain, but still, he was that sa strange man who had an interesting relationship with his fast-approaching death. “Aye, what then?” he said a mont after. “You didn’t force a way in just because you wanted to send so filthy Miner off to his much-earned rest, did you?”
“Not today, I’m afraid, since there have been a few complications.” Valens took hold of Harlow’s pipe and gestured him to lie down. “Turns out you might have a couple of years left in that battered body of yours.”
“Alas,” Harlow sighed as he let Valens take the pipe. “They don’t even let a man die a good death round here. Always be so complications.”
Valens first started with a Lifeward to see how the sickness progressed through Harlow’s feet and found most of the toes missing on the right foot. His left foot had only two of them left, but it was clear that the Miner wouldn’t be walking for the rest of his life. Up around his chest, it took Valens a second to catch that odd change in Harlow’s Resonance. His frequencies remained still altered, and just as Father Harmon said, they were working against his body if lacking their earlier vigor. Bit by bit, they ate away the man’s flesh, leaving behind dead tissue rotten beyond redy.
Shall we take a look at that chest cavity now?
There was… nothing in Harlow’s chest. Not a Door of Surges waiting to be opened, nor an indication of the rotten source that plagued the man’s body. Just a deep dark nothingness, which was just about the sa scene Valens had seen in his own chest before he had gone through that Cursed Rift.
Just then, he felt the Hexsurge spell formula tingle at the edge of his mind. There was a certain pull to the spell, a sudden call as if it yearned to be used even though Valens hadn’t yet understood the implications or the limits of its capabilities. The spell formula itself had its similarities with Lifesurge, but Valens wasn’t sure what to make of those strange characters.
Well, I know they have sothing to do with Void. I could feel its underlying dinsions just by gazing at it. I suppose so practice will help figure out its intricacies.
The mont he reached out to the spell formula, he felt the shift in the Resonance just like when he’d passed through the prison of the Weeping Horror and arrived at the Spiritum, where thousands of frequencies welcod him. This ti, though, there were only two sets of frequencies he could focus on.
And they were coming from beyond a door.
It was a door of simple quality. It seed more like a giant piece of marble carved from a way bigger block, the edges slightly worn and cracked in so places. There weren’t the spheres Valens saw in his own door, nor was there a vile, giant sigil speaking of dark things upon its surface. It was just a simple door, and there was little else to it.
It seems that everyone has a door inside their chest cavity. I guess I know what’s waiting for on the other side of it.
Valens guided the Hexsurge threads toward the door with minute focus, feeling like a child who was trying to get a handle on his new toy. The threads were thinner than a Lifesurge’s and lacked the joyful rhythm of lifemana. What they had instead was an airy feeling, which didn’t co as a surprise since they were purely made out of Void mana.
Too slippery. Feels like if I ever try to take a breath, or even blink for a second, they’d slip through my fingers.
That was why Valens kept his eye on them until they reached Harlow’s door. He couldn’t see a big enough crack upon its surface where he could send the Hexsurge threads through, and there wasn’t a handle that he could use to open it either, but then it occurred to him that he didn’t need any of that when he nudged the Hexsurge threads ahead.
They vanished inside the giant door like wisps of smoke, moving through the unseen parts of the structure. Just when Valens thought he was about to lose control over them, he heard a ntal click reverberate in the depths of his mind.
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The door opened.
He held his breath as he sent a Lifeward after the Hexsurge threads. The frequencies called out to him, hundreds and thousands of them lying in a strange lull, like minds of comatose patients unaware of their surroundings. Valens witnessed their blurry shapes and found that he could only focus on a single one of them.
[You have arrived at the Spiritum.]
The notification blinked out on its own as he listened to the tunes of this particular Resonance. He knew those frequencies. They wavered in this strange land of emptiness like a fleeting dream, occasionally taking the form of a rather stooped man with most of his toes missing.
Harlow. So this is your… soul?
Valens heard his heart beating loudly in the cage of his chest. His breaths quickened as the implications of this scene settled right into his mind. The Spiritum… It wasn’t just filled with ancient beings and their minions. No, this place was ho to the frequencies of those that existed in the material world.
I can see the lingering filth, as well.
It looked like streaks of shadows hacking at Harlow’s feet, muddling into his frequencies in a way that turned them against Harlow’s own Resonance. They carried the touch of the Weeping Horror, but Valens was relieved to find that these streaks were mostly remnants of that creature’s influence.
A sickness beyond my sight. I can see it now, though, can’t I? And if I can see it, I sure can fix it.
He sent a Lifesurge into the chest cavity while keeping the Lifeward and Hexsurge pair active. These three skills each had their uses, but when used together, they beca a singular tool with which Valens could cleanse the soul of a Miner who was taken by a shadowy sickness.
It’s as though they are ant to be used together. This can’t be a coincidence.
He wondered whether the na Surgemaster had a deeper aning to it. Perhaps other than Lifesurge and Hexsurge, there were more surges he wasn’t aware of. Perhaps he had been only familiar with just a tiny part of this legacy, and there was so much more waiting for him further ahead.
The truth… It’s not simple at all.
Focusing on the shadowy streaks plaguing Harlow’s form, he was about to cleanse them when a thought ca to him. So rather than letting Lifesurge threads dissolve into waves of lifemana, he instead managed one of the lifemana scalpels and tapped its blunt tip to the wavering form of Harlow’s forehead.
“Ah!” ca a yelp from up close. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Valens said with a serious look, while inward, he was rather ashad to have tried sothing like that on a patient. “Let’s get you fixed up, shall we? I guess I have so idea of what I’m doing now.”
Harlow squinted at him. “So idea? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Stay still,” Valens said stately, then set to work.
…..
The golden armor of the Sun’s Church had magical properties. It could clean itself. It could stave off most of the attacks while protecting the wearer from inertia. It was also much more comfortable than it looked, as each one of the armor sets was tailor-made for the Templars. It had, however, one single problem.
It couldn’t remove itself from a Templar’s body.
“Stop staring at like a fool, and get those straps out already!” Edric fud as he tried to reach for the straps of his chest piece, and failed for the tenth ti while Garran stood there staring at him with a toothy grin.
“I seem to rember asking if you want any help before you’ve decided you can handle it.” Garran picked himself up from the chair, his armor already removed and placed by his bed by the windows. The tips of his hair were wet, and a generous sll of soap washed off him. The bastard had taken a full shower while Edric wasted an hour alone with his armor. “And you taught us that a Templar is nothing without his team.”
“That was then!” Edric said with a sharp scowl, but still turned his back so Garran could take the straps off. “Tis change. We all have to deal with it.”
“So that was you, eh, captain?” Garran grinned slightly. “Dealing with the change? Well, don’t bla for saying it, but you’re not taking it all too well, is what I’m thinking.”
“I should’ve left that kid by that Rift,” Edric huffed. “I should’ve left him there with the Duality Guild, let their little guild go about with whatever plot they were brewing.”
“I disagree,” Garran said. “I like Val. Blessed Father knows he has sothing important missing from that brain of his, but you can’t bla a man for being too courageous, can you? Especially once you see that he can damn well take care of himself.”
“You don’t just stare at a Remnant Terror and have the foul thing crumble like a castle of sand. You have to deal in dark things to do that, wicked things like the Hexnders. But even they wouldn’t have dared to risk a skin touch with the Weeping Horror. Who in their sane mind would do such a thing?” Edric argued.
“He does, apparently, and does with a certain finesse. You have to give him that.” Garran was taking this whole thing too lightly, and it was starting to get on Edric’s nerves. “I told him we’d be glad to take him in.”
Edric snapped incredulously to Garran, eyes growing wide. “You did what now?”
“Told him the Church would appreciate his talents,” Garran shrugged. “Perhaps not as a fully-fledged man of God, but as an outside help. You know, just like how the other Divine Orders do it. I thought this was the plan after we saw how he dealt with that Wailborn, no?”
Edric clenched his fingers, and relaxed them after a mont. It felt good hearing his knuckles click. It gave him sothing else to focus on than that stupid face grinning at him. He took in a long breath to calm his thoughts, then felt the inner fla stir in his chest.
You approve this? You think this is the right thing to do? What about the Bishop? What about the others? They would want to burn him at the stake if they learn what he has accomplished here. I can’t protect him from everything. They wouldn’t—
The inner fla flared defiantly, spreading furious warmth across his arms. It wavered in the cage of his heart, and its fla burned him from within. It was a warning. Coming from his own soul.
“It’s too risky,” Edric said, wincing slightly as Garran finally pulled the chest piece off his back. “I agreed to leave Mas here for a reason. He’s already seen enough. He’s going to tell everything to Bishop Cornelious once we get to the capital, and if he hears a word of us thinking about making use of Valens’s talents as well… I can’t protect him. None of us can.”
“Why, I can think of soone who can,” Garran said stately, almost painfully since his face grimaced all of a sudden. “If we let Lenora take care of him, then nobody could say a damn word about it. After all, what’s an Arcane Healer but a twisted kind of Hexnder, eh, captain? I’d say let that crazy woman handle the higher-ups. They hate and fear her more than us.”
“Lenora?” Edric mumbled. The very na of that woman sent shivers down his spine and made him appreciate the ti he spent away from the capital. But Garran could be right. No. He was right if they could sohow make her agree to a deal. It wouldn’t be cheap, however, nor would it be easy. Nothing about that woman was easy or cheap.
She’d be lton’s Queen if there’d ever been a chance of it.
“Leave the matter for now,” Edric said, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was too early to make a decision. They had ti. A few weeks on the road to see if there was another way out of this. At the worst case, he could let the Healer walk off on his own to Caligi or sowhere else. Anywhere but lton if Bishop Cornelious decided to hang him for good.
“I’ll think on it,” he said, voice heavy. “Now get this armor off of . It’s bloody hot in this thing!”
“Stand still, then, captain. You’re not making this easier for any of us,” Garran chuckled. That stupid grin on his face… Well, at least one of them was in the mood for smiling.
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