120 – Infuse

In a quick overview, Vivi detailed the Codex’s capabilities and how it might allow Hollis to heal the remaining infected. She also presented a [Phoenix Blood Elixir] and told them it would make a safe, if expensive, alternative.

“Either will work,” Vivi summed up. “And we have fallbacks. I know how painful casting with manaburn is, and there’s no need to test the Codex right away. I just thought I’d offer since it makes sense. And I do have marginally more trust in a proper healing spell.”

Alchemical solutions weren’t unreliable, especially such high-tier ones, but the gold standard for healing was undeniably magic infused with divine energy. Nothing could truly compete with a [Priestess]’s spells or similar.

“As do I, Lady Vivisari. And more than marginal, no matter what potion it might be.” Hollis considered quietly for a moment. “I’m far from one to shy from pain, especially when lives are at stake. Let’s not take any risks, however small. If you see this as the best path forward, let us proceed.”

She had expected the answer. A part of her was torn for having made the offer in the first place, but she had lied about nothing, and moreover, she suspected Hollis wanted to help regardless of personal cost. That would have been the case if she were in his shoes. He’d been through significantly more pain just reaching this chamber to begin with.

“Very well.” She held the book out. Thoughts flashing back to when she’d done the same for Saffra, she reflexively said, “It’s heavy.”

But Hollis accepted the tome with little problem. His levels had strengthened him despite his magic-type class, like Vivi herself. He studied the book with a curious gaze, scanning the design on the cover and, after flipping to the first page, the magical rune inlaid into the thick paper.

“I’ll need to remove the infection first,” Vivi reiterated so there were no misunderstandings. “We’ll start with one person to ensure it works like we hope. Once the infection is gone, use your strongest healing spell. There are no disease or poison aspects, so basic healing will suffice. Overcharge it with as much mana as you need—don’t ration it, there’s plenty. If that works, we can do the next eight all at once with an area-of-effect spell. Assuming you have one.” She received a nod in confirmation, though she could read a question of his own in the way his brow pulled down. She answered, “The Codex should more than make up for how area-of-effect spells tend to be weaker. I don’t want you casting any more than you have to.”

His lips turned up in amusement. “Nor do I,” he admitted.

“Are you ready, then? I can start whenever.”

He traced the rune Galdrust—reservoir—with a finger. “Anything I should know before you begin?”

“It’s intuitive, according to my apprentice.” She paused. “Though… overwhelming?”

Saffra squirmed in place. “Maybe not overwhelming. It just caught me by surprise,” she said with a hint of defensiveness. “Be ready for a lot of mana. More than you’re thinking. Then double that like five times.”

For some reason, Vivi felt suddenly self-conscious as Hollis and Eshara turned appraising, bordering-on-cautious looks at her. “There’s a substantial amount of mana in each page,” she agreed, “but you don’t need to claim it all, and it’s docile, for lack of a better term.”

“I’ll brace myself,” Hollis replied. “It does go without saying that the personal reservoir of the Sorceress will be something to behold.”

“You can know that in your head, but it’s different seeing it in person,” Saffra said dubiously.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Hollis sounded amused rather than intimidated.

“You can link to the book first in preparation,” Vivi told him. “You don’t have to cast when you do. You probably should, actually.” She’d been ready to proceed, but familiarization would only take a moment.

“Very well.” The cleric looked down at the book and focused, serious but clearly unconcerned. “Here I go.”

Vivi felt the book open up—and Hollis’s face went ashen. His eyes unfocused, widening to the size of dinner plates. Though he didn’t cry out, every muscle went rigid in pure, unbridled shock, as if an electric current had seized him.

“This is safe?” Eshara asked in sudden alarm.

“It is, yes,” Vivi said, her vague embarrassment with the situation growing.

Hollis stayed frozen that way for several seconds. Eventually, he swallowed thickly and regained control of himself. Vivi felt the vault door holding back the depths of the Codex thunk closed. She also swore she sensed… disappointment?… from the book. It hadn’t liked being linked to without being used.

The man took a second to find his words. “My.” There was a nervous tinge to his tone. “I should have weighed your advice a little more heavily, dear,” he said to Saffra. “You’d think I’d have learned by now to shed the arrogance.”

“It’s a lot of mana,” Saffra said, sympathetic.

“It was as you said it would be,” Hollis told Vivi next. “Remarkably intuitive. There won’t be any issue siphoning mana, I’m certain of it. Imbuing it… we’ll have to see. Keep the potion ready. I would test first, but as we’ve said, I would rather limit how many spells I cast.”

“I agree. If there’s no objections, I’ll begin now.”

“No point in dallying.” Hollis straightened his robes out with his free hand. He didn’t sound shaken, exactly, but Vivi could tell the Codex had left an impression on him. He had plastered on too cheerful a tone.

Vivi put that out of her mind and focused on the task at hand. Floating over one of the mutated, humanoid beasts, she began drawing the spell she had passingly named [Unbind Scourge], a customized design that used the dispel-type [Annul] as its base. She wasn’t healing anything here, merely unhooking many magical barbs that embedded the complex working of biomancy into the victim. Though she supposed the distinction was academic.

As she worked, Hollis linked to the Codex. Once [Unbind Scourge] was ready, she activated the spell and mentally dove into the victim to start peeling away the offending magic. Hollis’s own spell circle grew as he poured oceans of mana into it. He didn’t bother masking the spell’s power, so it glowed to even her senses. His work wouldn’t be one of subtlety, but of flooding his target’s body with immense restorative energy.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She also felt that strange, foreign energy she herself had no access to flowing out of the cleric and intermingling with the mana—tinting it white, as her sixth sense interpreted the phenomenon. Power lent from the heavens, morphing the fundamental nature of the energy. For all that clerics, priests, and other similar classes were mages in some sense, much of how their spells worked was foreign to her. There was a reason that they didn’t train at the Thaumaturgical Institute.

Vivi finished dismantling the Seed of Genesis’s biomancy on the first victim and lowered her staff to make it clear she was done. “You can heal him now.”

Or her, for all I know, she thought. The mutations were that advanced.

Hollis wasted no time responding. He incanted his own spell.

“[Benediction of Light].”

The words came out strained, and sweat had covered his forehead as he formed the spell, but the mana and circle itself were stable. Vivi hadn’t doubted Hollis—she knew Titled didn’t reach the heights he had without an ability to appraise their condition objectively, to decide whether they were capable of a given feat. Still, she’d been ready to dispel or recover whatever she might need to, and to use the potion as a backup.

The chamber glowed radiant with the holy purification of Hollis’s presumably strongest healing spell, multiplied many thousands of times over. Even to her senses, she felt an urge to squint as the monster in front of her lit up like a sun. Lower-tier mages would have gone temporarily blind stealing so much as a glance at the pyre. Even Eshara turned her head away by instinct, though she kept her eyes locked on the creature’s form.

Vivi shielded their party of four from the worst of the glare, particularly Saffra. The girl wouldn’t understand much of what she was seeing, but glimpses into powerful magic could help her contextualize concepts further down the road. Not the most functional training, but still valuable.