071, 1/2

The air in the hospital smelled of cold stone. Erick didn’t like it. At first, the smell was normal, not really even there. But as Poi and Kiri slept in their beds and the afternoon came, as he channeled mana through several Ophiel to the farms of Spur so far away, the clean, stone smell of the hospital, became pervasive. Oppressive. Unkind, even though it obviously was. This was a hospital, after all.

Ophiel trilled on Erick’s lap. He was quiet about it, but it was still audible. He looked up at Erick with a few tiny eyes; he must have sensed Erick’s growing unease. The truth was, was that Erick didn’t much care for hospitals. Years ago, his mother died of breast cancer and his father died of bone cancer, and by the time he was old enough to recognize them as his grandparents, his two grandmothers also died of cancer. With all of his medical history pointing toward an early death, it was hard for Erick to be happy about hospitals.

He expected to die in a few years, laying in some hospital somewhere, dying of some unrelenting disease. But that just didn’t happen on Veird. Erick was safe from death, at least in that specific way. Heck, he even talked to Death occasionally, asking the god of the End about magic.

And so, as Erick looked to Poi and Kiri, both still sleeping under thin white blankets in their individual hospital beds, worry ate at him. The two dragonkin should have woken up a while ago. The doctor had administered [Greater Treat Wounds]. They were healed, according to the doctor, but they had to wake in their own time. Those were the doctor’s words. Erick could do nothing but trust she was correct.

Erick looked away from Poi and Kiri to see beyond the windows above their beds. He couldn’t see much except the sky. The sun slanted in at a hard angle, spilling yellow light across the center of the stone room. Outside of the room, beyond an open door, footsteps tapped on the stone as people walked back and forth in stone hallways, going wherever they needed to go. This hospital was busy, all the time, but it was mostly quiet. Rats had left a while ago; he was needed elsewhere. Teressa stayed. She sat in another chair on the other side of the room. Sunlight fell across her calm face, and closed eyes. She was meditating, trying to get in touch with the mana, trying to develop her Mana Sense. Erick watched the manasphere swirl around her, flowing in and out of her grey clothes and green skin. She smiled slightly.

Her smile failed.

She opened her eyes, blinking hard as she turned toward the door. She stood, then moved to the side of the room, preparing for something to come through the door as she glanced at Erick, sending, ‘The Headmaster is coming.’

Erick nodded to Teressa as he stood. Ophiel flapped up to his shoulder, shrinking to parakeet-sized. Erick continued to channel mana though his [Familiar], across the ocean, as he listened to the sounds of the hospital echoing from the open door. The usual bustle of the hospital turned quieter or stopped altogether, as a person, light on their feet and wearing padded shoes, walked through the hallway. Erick heard a few small gasps out there. He adjusted his own clothes, making sure they were straight and tidy. Ophiel quickly preened himself by flickering his wings and eyes into better, more symmetrical positions, trying to mimic Erick’s preparations.

The Headmaster stepped into the doorway of the room. He was an ancient human-looking man, but also regal, wearing immaculately clean and pressed yellow and white robes. He gazed into the room with amber eyes, and a soft expression. He saw Kiri and Poi, and with a slight frown, whispered, “I hope I am not disturbing.”

Erick spoke normally, saying, “Come on in, Headmaster.” He looked to Kiri and Poi, then said, “They should have been awake a while ago. Maybe I just need to start talking around them and they’ll wake.”

The Headmaster nodded as he stepped into the room. He nodded towards Teressa, saying, “Teressa. I hear you’re doing well in Esoteric Magic.”

Teressa stood a bit straighter. Even though she towered over the Headmaster by a good three feet and a few hundred kilograms, she still seemed like a precocious young girl, as she said, “Thank you, sir. I am trying.”

The Headmaster smiled. He turned to Erick. “You haven’t made a single new spell since you came here, and now you make three?”

Erick felt his stomach turn. He must have flinched, because the Headmaster noticed.

The Headmaster added, “I’m not chastising you. I just find it odd. I expected you to be leading the charge into this new kind of magic. Not to sit back and let others forage ahead.” He looked to Kiri and Poi, saying, “Have you grown scared of pain?”

Erick looked at his apprentice, and his head guard, sleeping under white sheets, because of an experiment he had failed to fully prepare for. He felt the air go out of him as he said, “Yes.”

The Headmaster said, “Existence is suffering.”

The way he said it was so foreign but yet so familiar, in a different language and an infinity far from everything that Erick had known before, that a smile came unbidden to Erick, along with a bubble of laughter.

The Headmaster looked at him with eyes askance.

Erick immediately said, “Sorry. It just— That’s a saying back where I come from. From a religion, actually.”

Now it was the Headmaster’s turn to be surprised. “… it is?”

“There’s a religion known as Buddhism. I was never very religious, but their first tenet is ‘Existence is Suffering’. The second is… suffering happens because of want and desire. The third is…” Erick thought for a second. He said, “I think it’s… ‘to deny these desires is to stop the suffering’. The last tenet is a guide on how to achieve this goal which I completely forget but it involves a lot of ‘living correctly’.”

The Headmaster looked away from Erick, back to Kiri and Poi, saying, “A wise people, then, these buddhismists.”

Erick smiled again.

The Headmaster asked, “Do you consider yourself religious these days?”

Erick paused. He thought. He said, “The words are the same, but the way I think of religion and how it is here seems to be fundamentally different from everything I knew. If you would have asked me this question back on Earth, I would have said no, because the only thing I ever felt we had on Earth was each other. But here, on Veird? There’s gods that you can talk to, and help from a Script to make life better.” He added, “Am I religious? No. Am I religious? Maybe.”

The Headmaster stood in silence for a long moment, as the quiet sounds of a hospital in motion played out in the hallways beyond the room. He said, “Your classes with me begin tomorrow, if you so choose.”

Erick said, “I would like that.”

The Headmaster nodded, then turned, and walked out of the room.

Small footsteps on stone echoed in the sounds of an empty hospital. After a minute, the quiet multitudes of people walking back and forth resumed. Everyone had places to be, after all.

Erick sat back down in his chair. Ophiel resumed his position on Erick’s lap, quietly harping and singing of violins. A pluck here, a vibration there.

After another minute passed, and the Headmaster seemed to truly be gone, Teressa sent, ‘I feel like I just missed a wyrm’s charge.’

Erick sent back, ‘Me too.’

Teressa eventually went back to training her Mana Sense, while Erick continued to rain on Spur’s farms. Gentle silence filled the air.

An hour later, Kiri woke up first with a grumble and a groan.

Teressa smiled wide, as she said, “Welcome back, Kiri.”

Erick rushed to her side, saying, “I’m so sorry, Kiri! I should have put up a stone bunker. I should have [Teleport]ed us all far away. There was no need to do the experiment so—”

Kiri grumbled out, “Not so loud.”

Erick went silent.

Kiri sighed out into the air, saying, “Headache’s still there.”

“The doctor said you should be fine,” Erick half pleaded, half stated. He calmed, adding, “Soon enough.”

Kiri blinked hard. She asked, “Did you manage to make a spell out of that?”

Erick sighed. He centered himself. He said, “Not yet. I haven’t leveled the pieces, and I’m not sure if it’s going to work, anyway. The Headmaster came in here—”

“What!” Kiri’s scaled green face flushed a darker green as she said, “While I was laid out like this?” She mumbled toward the ceiling, “So fucking embarrassing.”

Erick smiled. Kiri was going to be okay. But just to make sure, Erick went out into the hallway to find the doctor. Kiri was already out of her bed, back into normal clothes and hungry, by the time Erick returned with the doctor. After a quick checkup and another casting of [Greater Treat Wounds], the doctor gave Kiri the ‘all clear’. Kiri and Teressa went down to the cafeteria to get something while the doctor went back to her duties and Erick waited in the room, beside Poi. Soon enough, Kiri and Teressa returned with food, and Rats.

As the scents of meats and sauces filled the room, Poi opened his eyes.

“Smells good,” he said.

Rats held a fork full of meat, saying, “Heeey! Look who’s awake.”

“Oh thank the gods,” Erick whispered into his rice bowl, thankful that Poi was awake. He set his dinner aside.

Poi grumbled, “It was a mistake to not believe you, sir.”

Erick burst into laughter, and if a few tears fell, then no one said anything.

“Not so loud, please,” Poi instantly said.

Erick went quiet. He whispered, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I really should have moved us all much further from the experiment. This was entirely my fault. I’m sorry, Poi.”

Poi sighed out, blinking long. Tendrils of thought flowed from him into the world, once again. He said, “What did I miss?”

Rats said, “Nothing major.”

Kiri packed up her dinner into a conjured box, saying, “Let’s go back to the Manor. We can eat there?”

Poi’s stomach grumbled. He said, “Sounds good to me.”

Teressa said, “I’ll go get something from the cafeteria for you, Poi. Any requests?”

“Fish.” Poi said, “And rice.”

Teressa nodded as she walked out of the room.

Rats packed away his own dinner, saying, “I’ll call the doctor back. You need a once-over before we check you out, Poi.”

Poi sighed out, “Fine.”

Erick smiled. They were going to be okay.

 

– – – –

 

Kiri and Poi were going to be okay, but Erick still didn’t know about Jane.

Erick laid in bed with a tiny Ophiel sitting on his stomach. He couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t called Jane since Rats clued him in that she probably had dragon essence. She must have had it since she came back from Killtree, but she hadn’t said anything, except that she might be coming to Oceanside.

Surely she knew how dangerous that would be for her?

Danger never stopped her before, but the fact that she hadn’t even told him about the essence said a lot. Jane didn’t like it when he worried over her. She didn’t like it when anyone worried over her. She was the strong one; that was half of her whole personality. Erick wished she could be a bit more vulnerable with someone, but he also didn’t want her heartbroken, either.

A lot of jumbled emotions rumbled around in Erick’s head. Moments passed in quiet contemplation, as Erick came around to the same thought: was Jane up for a call? After staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes, he decided to just call her. She could tell him to stay away from her problems if she wanted.

He summoned a few tiny Ophiel and sent them [Teleporting] to Spur. Soon enough, one of them, tiny and quaint, hovered above Erick’s mage tower.

He opened up a telepathic connection to Jane, ‘Hello? You busy?’

‘Hey, dad.’ Jane sent, ‘Not that busy right now. What’s up?’

Erick relaxed.‘Oh, good. It’s been a day, let me tell you.’

A smidgen of mirth came through the connection, as Jane sent, ‘I’m just eating dinner right now, so tell me all about it.’

Erick began, and the words came out like a dam broken. ‘So I made a dungeon that makes light slimes and I think [Renew] is a part of [Ward] and…’

They talked for hours. About magic and monsters, dragons and deception, and everything else in between. Jane was the one who brought up she had accidentally taken in dragon essence. Erick freaked out a little, but Jane immediately said she wasn’t coming to Oceanside.

Crisis averted!

She had spoken with the Mage Trio next door and decided against visiting the island arcanaeum. The Headmaster did have a track record for eating noncompliant dragon essence tainted people, and Jane was rather unsure she could ever fully commit to the role. Besides, she had found a different way to get rid of her unwanted essence. She wouldn’t give any details regarding what she had found, but her essence should be gone in 25 more days, or so. After that, came convalescence. It was supposed to be bad, but Jane could deal. Erick believed her.

The conversation turned toward other topics.

It was nice to hear Jane speak.

 

– – – –

 

Erick woke up with the sunrise. A cold light laid in the sky, outside of the windows of Windy Manor, while the scents of cinnamon and sugar drifted on the air. Erick had ‘invented’ cinnamon a month ago; Kiri was taking well to the spice. It was a bit odd to see [Grow] be used to repair the outermost layer of bark on a tree, but it worked well enough, and Kiri loved cinnamon, and she employed the spell well.

He had ‘invented’ a few other spices since then. Nutmeg and ginger were big hits. Poi especially liked ginger slices on his fish. He had made some middling progress on chocolate, but aside from the proper shape of the Tarip trees to the side of the front lawn, Erick had made little actual process on creating chocolate.

Erick looked down into the center of the house, down to the kitchen at the side, below. Kiri was chopping up onions for breakfast omelets. She must have already had the cinnamon rolls baking in the oven.

He went to the bathroom and did his morning routine as Ophiel plodded around the floor outside the room, occasionally scratching at the door. When Erick came out, Ophiel flitted up to his shoulder, taking his proper place for the next hour or the whole day, or however long he decided to remain clutched to Erick’s clothes.

Erick walked down to breakfast.

“Do you want to come to the Headmaster’s lesson today, Kiri?” Erick asked.

“Absolutely not.”

Erick paused. He looked around the room. Rats read the newspaper on the couch in front of the large windows, while Teressa practiced Mana Sense in the corner of the living room. Poi must have woken up, upstairs; Erick heard the door to his room open upstairs. He looked up. Poi stepped onto the balcony, then went on his way to the bathroom up there.

Stolen novel; please report.

Erick turned to Kiri, asking, “Are you sure you don’t want to come? This is that ‘magic for the archmage’ class you wanted.”

Moments passed without an answer. Rats read his paper and Teressa blinked in the morning light.

Kiri shoved around cooking eggs in a skillet, saying, “While I am thankful for his generosity, he is a dragon. I almost forgot that.” She shivered a bit, then said, “I still can’t believe that he came into our hospital room and you talked him down from killing us all.”

Erick exclaimed, “Ohh! I don’t think it was that bad.”

Teressa spoke up, “It was that bad, sir.”

Kiri added, “Particle Magic is too broad. It’s too big. It’s finally starting to become a problem for the people in charge.”

“Yup,” Rats added, flipping through his paper. He asked, “Is Jane still coming to Oceanside?”

“No.” Erick said, “I talked to her last night—”

“Sir!” Poi called out from the second floor balcony. “The Headmaster is coming right now.”