Chapter 75: Growth

Viv stayed in a foul mood for all of two hours. The exhaustion of spellcasting and then meeting with a god compounded with her anguish to form a nebulous cloud of anger and confusion. She wished she could have stayed maudlin for a day, reclining on a comforter and nursing her heart and a glass of sweet wine. Unfortunately for her, Viv had the sort of single-minded obsession that prevented her from dwelling on a problem she could not solve. Eventually, it all came down to a simple fact. She had a hurt soul that prevented her from communicating with the divine. She needed that soul healed before she could even learn what was needed to cross the veil back to earth. If it was even possible. She would get a healed soul later. In the meanwhile, there were limbs to reattach.

The first patient was to be Koro. The tall Amazon woman was still inconsolable after the loss of her arm. Viv brought her to the redesignated limb reattachment hut the very next morning while also trying to keep her expectations low.

 

“You can regrow my arm?”

 

“No, I mean maybe, I mean we think it could work.”

 

“You can regrow my arm?” she yelped, ”oh Viv thank you thank you. I never expected you to come up with something, you’re a real sister!”

 

Denerim wasn’t in the hut. Instead, they found Brenna alone mixing a fresh batch of goop. The town’s healer was fresh and rested now, a stark contrast from her harried self after the battle. She even looked a bit younger.

 

“Oh, here you are. I am standing in for the inquisitor. Neriad came to me in my sleep to share the knowledge of the relevant spell.”

 

She blushed slightly.

 

“What sort of dream?” Viv asked with suspicion.

 

“A woman doesn’t kiss and tell, my dear. Now let us get started, shall we?”

 

Viv complained in her mind about not getting bonked in her dreams by godly incarnations. There was no justice. Nevertheless, her patient was waiting and she started by forming the limb this time. She decided that it was best to cut the stump literally at the last moment so as to prevent her patient from bleeding to death. Shame she didn’t think of that before. Rest in Arthur, poor squirrels.

 

It turned out that reforming a human limb was not overly complicated compared to a squirrel limb, but also that the size difference made it a long-winded chore. Viv actually had to draw from her dagger’s power reserves to keep going. Koro was watching the thing reform with clear wonder.

 

“If it doesn’t work, we can still eat it. I always wondered how I tasted!”

 

“Squee!”

 

“No cannibalism in my operation room!” Viv reproached. The arm was almost fully formed now. She could see keratin solidifying over the fingertips and the muscles getting toned. The arm was white and hairless like a marble statue.

 

After hours of grueling labor, she had it. Probably.

 

It looked right.

 

“Can I move now? My ass hurts,” Koro told her.

 

“No. Now we cut off your stump and reattach the arm before you bleed out.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I am ready,” Brenna said as she stood up from the desk where she had been working. She approached the construct and traced her own side with a light finger. It lit up and bathed her peaceful smile with golden light.

 

“Alright Koro, remember that this will sting a bit while your conduits are redrawn.”

 

“Cutting off my stump won’t sting?”

 

“We’re going to use an anesthetic.”

 

“A what now?”

 

“A painkiller,” Viv explained. Fortunately, the helpful apothecary had prepared quite a lot and he sure knew his stuff. Viv traced the place where they would cut with a pen and checked on Koro to see if the medicine was taking effect. The tall woman had crossed eyes and her tongue was slightly out.

 

“Koro?”

 

“Bblblblblblblblbl.”

 

She was high as fuck. Good enough. Viv signaled Solfis and the golem deftly removed the scarred tissue with the kind of expertise surgeons would kill for. Viv smashed the newly-formed limb against the stump just as Brenna activated her part of the ritual. The healer’s voice took on a deep pitch, one that felt mirrored by some other voice at the limit of Viv’s perception. Flesh melted into flesh as if it was putty and the fingers twitched. They turned pink as blood flooded Koro’s new extremities.

 

The fingers twitched again.

 

“Koro?”

 

“Blblblblbl yes?”

 

“Can you move your arms? Please?”

 

“The one I lost is sort of itchy…. Oh?”

 

She stared with childish wonder at her reformed limb. Her hand closed into a fist. Big, fat tears pearled in the woman’s eyes then fell in a generous cascade over her ruddy cheeks. The new limb flexed with a little bit of awkwardness, but soon the Amazon had every finger touching her thumbs in a rhythmical dance.

 

“Is this a dream? Is it?”

 

“No,” Viv answered. She felt moved as well as they both watched the regrown limb with a mix of hope and apprehension. Even Brenna was holding her breath.

 

“By Neriad’s fetching buttocks, have we done it? Did it work?”

 

Viv nodded, quite happy.

 

“Looks like it —urg.”

 

Koro had taken the smaller woman in a bear hug strong enough for Viv to count all her ribs.

 

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

 

“Hey. Hm. You might still feel some discomfort.”

 

“Thank youuuuuuuuuuuu I will name my first daughter after you I swear. Where is Yan? I am going to declare. YAAAAAN! You tight-assed stud! Where are youuuu?”

 

The woman crashed through the door despite Viv’s best efforts to hold her back — the outlander would have had a better chance at stopping a bull — and disappeared somewhere in the distance in a blur.

 

“Did she use a skill?” Viv wondered.

 

//We may want to change the protocol for the following operations, Your Grace.

 

“I don’t think using restraints is such a good idea,” Viv replied.

 

//Then perhaps a more resilient attire?

 

“Yeah.”

 

Viv had unleashed a drugged up horny two-armed bare-chested amazon upon the poor owner of the city’s brothel. She wished him all the best.

 

“Alright, I’m exhausted for today but let’s regrow an eye tomorrow.”

***

Unfortunately for the tired Viv, the news of her achievement traveled across the land at the speed of a sprinting Koro and a party was held that night in her and Neriad’s honor. Her reputation had grown so much that, by then, most of the city knew that she was an outlander. Denying the truth proved pointless because the Kazarans were like a bunch of excited kids given a big secret. They whispered it among themselves while eyeing strangers with suspicion. In this case, it just meant the prisoners. By the next day she had seventeen people lined up to regrow fingers and arms. All her tasks were delegated and she would spend most of the day in the operation building. Monster flesh was regularly retrieved by an overly enthusiastic Koro at no cost. Also, for some reason she received a message from the bank to inform her that gold swap for silver would be set at a guaranteed and generous fixed rate for her and her immediate companions only. No idea what caused that.

It only took two weeks for the first ripple to make itself known.

 

***

“We want to join Kazar.”

Viv reclined in her chair, breathing in the fresh air brought on by the Kazaran tree outside her tower’s window. She took in Marredyn’s appearance. The mountain tribe leader still wore that incredible big hat thing on his wizened head and a pleasant smile adorned his face. She thought that she could detect a hint of tension in the way he held his tea cup. She was not sure though.

 

Also, last time he had tried to influence her with magic and that still pissed her off so she let him marinate in the following silence. Served him right.

 

“Join us?” she finally allowed.

 

“Yes. A long-term alliance that goes beyond the military.”

 

A moment passed again quietly and it was clear that the tribe leader’s patience was fraying.

 

“Just like the one we discussed during our last meeting.”

 

“What changed?” Viv deadpanned.

 

Marredyn grit his teeth.

 

“Your new ideas are more pervasive than I thought, and many, including my own son, have expressed a great interest in rediscovering our roots. I find them hasty and careless. Perhaps I was too, when I was young.”

 

“Why don’t you tell me what you had in mind and I’ll write a treaty?”

 

“Any chances that you remove the tax on the transfer of goods?”

 

“Of course I will, wouldn’t want to hamper trade and thus reduce the federal tax.”

 

The man froze in his chair, tea cup held in a frightful grip.

 

“What’s a federal tax?”

 

Viv gave him the most evil smile that centuries of bureaucratic legacy could produce.

 

“I am so glad you asked.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

***

In the end, the mountain tribe joined Kazar as a separate state in what was starting to look like a federal republic, or a federal empire maybe since there were no elections scheduled and Viv had no plans to do so. The treaty was airtight thanks to Solfis’ vast and really weird expertise on the matter. The golem had access to hundreds of years of imperial records and jurisprudence. The key was to keep it simple. The tribes were part of the alliance but they retained their own local government, local laws and customs. The rest would be smoothed out by increased interconnections and the end of entry, exit, and trade fees.

 

Two days after that, Ban returned and asked for Viv as she was resting from shoving a temple guard’s new eye back in its socket. The ancient head of the heavy infantry detachment was wearing his full armor including the pennants he and his men had started to attach to various parts of their gear. His showed the tree of Kazar as well as his rank. He had a pair of younger men with him.

 

“Lady Viv, I have returned and I bring two recruits with me. Those are my cousin and my eldest grandson.”

 

He tugged nervously on his long white beard.

 

“I vouch for them, on my honor!”

 

“You know the score, Ban. Either Solfis says they make the cut or they don’t.”

 

//They will be granted their chance.

 

The golem exited from the operation room and deployed to his full height. One of the young ones looked him in the baleful orbs and took a valiant step forward which was either a credit to his courage or a total lack of survival instinct. Viv could not tell.

 

“I would die for Kazar, sir!”

 

//That is a start.

//Now let us make sure you kill for her instead.

***

Little by little, the heavy infantrymen trickled back into the camp now that the food situation was good enough. The exceptional harvest set people at ease and they saw it as a good omen and a sign that Sardanal had blessed the city. The recruits built a large barracks and training fields complex to house themselves. It had to be expanded once when the tribe warriors arrived, then another time because of an influx of crossbowmen recruits from the ranks of the refugees, mostly women. Viv assumed that a lot of folks were fucking but Solfis managed to maintain discipline.

 

Koro married Yan on the first day of autumn, just as Viv finished reattaching the last missing digit. Nothing would ever get her used to the scent of base-material goop. It was now time for the second phase of the ‘fuck the prince’ plan.

 

“Ok now that everyone is rearmed and relegged, we need to prepare the terrain for the arrival of the punitive expedition,” she told the council at their next meeting.

 

“It cannot possibly happen before next year,” Farren replied, “are we not rushing things?”

 

“Can you be absolutely sure about that?”

 

“Yes, we are mostly sure.”

 

It was Brenna who had interrupted the argument before it could really begin.

 

“And it doesn’t matter,” she continued, “because we have another reason to set out.”

 

Viv nodded at the invitation to elaborate.

 

“In his message, Neriad said that he would send people our way and would also be miffed if they end up in some monster belly. So to summarize, we can leave most of our regular troops to be trained here while setting out with the scouts so we are not exactly interrupting anything. Second, it will allow us to escort the next batch of refugees through the forest. Keep in mind that they will mostly be crippled until we can heal them. Third, it will allow us to recon the next battlefield and fourth, if I spend another day cooped up in the operation room, I’m liable to stab someone. Seriously.”

 

The others nodded.

 

“We can imagine that someone who enjoys fighting her way through hordes of undead would find this life dull,” Farren said with a supportive voice.

 

The others agreed and voiced their sympathy.