Lillene

Enjoy!

Two more fire blasts impacted on Serenity’s shield before he was certain another lightning bolt wasn’t headed his way, at least not from the lightning mage’s wand. The lightning mage seemed to come to the conclusion a moment after Serenity did, because he dropped the wand and threw lightning at Serenity using his hand instead of the wand.

It wasn’t a simple bolt this time. Instead, the lightning formed a curtain that went all directions, including into the ground and even back into the caster. It took far less mana to block the few threads of lightning that actually reached Serenity’s shield than it had the lightning bolts of before. The lightning mage clearly didn’t have the control for his own spells and needed a focus, which Serenity must have killed when he hit it. A scream told Serenity that the lightning mage wasn’t even protected against his own weapon. 

That left only the fire mage. Serenity turned to him, only to see him sinking to the ground. He hadn’t hit the mage; exactly what just happened?

Serenity turned to glance behind him and saw Rissa lowering a rifle. It looked a little oddly shaped to Serenity, but he really only knew guns from movies, so he couldn’t say what that meant. Still, that meant she had to have taken care of the fire mage. He’d have to ask her where it came from later; he knew she hadn’t been carrying it for most of the walk.

Serenity turned to the lightning mage, who now smelled somewhat disconcertingly of burnt flesh. “Surrender before we have to hurt you more than you hurt yourself.”

The lightning mage didn’t seem to hear Serenity; his ears were probably ringing from the nearby lightning. Serenity’s ears were certainly unhappy enough that he hadn’t heard Rissa’s shot. Serenity brought his manablade up threateningly; hopefully, the man would get the idea that he needed to give up from the visual clue, even if he couldn’t hear Serenity’s shout. “Surrender!”

He didn’t. Another wave of eye-searingly bright, loud lightning flashed off Serenity’s shield. The man screamed again, but this time he triggered another wave of lightning almost immediately.

Right after the third wave of uncontrolled lightning, Serenity saw something fall from the lightning mage’s side. It was long and skinny, with scorched material at the back and a pointed needle-like tip at the front. Wait. Had Rissa actually managed to shoot the two mages with tranquilizer darts?

:It shouldn’t be long now,: Rissa sent. :The paralytic’s pretty fast. We’ll need to get the two of them to Blaze quickly; I made certain this was something he could heal before I had the darts made. He says it should block spellcasting but not quickly or completely. Something about someone like you being able to cast normally afterwards.:

Pretty fast was certainly accurate, though it seemed longer in combat than it would have in another setting; Serenity had to block a half-dozen more lightning sprays before the lightning mage actually collapsed to the ground. He shook his head and called Legion; he could handle one person without too much difficulty, but he couldn’t carry four people at once. He’d have to stick them in his Rift and that was a bad idea if he wanted them to be sane afterwards.

“Legion will be here shortly,” Serenity told Rissa once he got a reply. “Two of-”

Rissa shook her head. :I can’t hear you. The lightning was too loud. I’ll have Blaze check me as soon as we get to him.:

Serenity was glad he healed on his own; if he’d been hurt by the volume, it had already healed. 

The badly injured male fighter had somehow managed to crawl to the treeline while Serenity and Rissa were dealing with the mages. Fortunately for his future survival, he hadn’t managed to get far enough to be outside the range of Serenity’s aura, so Serenity was able to carry him back to the waiting group. Serenity doubted he’d survive long without Blaze’s help, or the help of a similarly skilled healer; it wasn’t just his arm that was killed by Serenity’s shield when he ran into it, even if it was the most obvious thing.

A few minutes later, two of Legion’s bodies arrived with a pair of garden carts. Serenity was almost shocked that, despite the carts’ size, they had no trouble transporting an unconscious mage. Serenity had to carry the female fighter while Rissa helped the male fighter walk. Serenity would have been worried about her if she wasn’t covered by his armor-self and his shield; as it was, there was very little that could harm her. 

A poison cloud would probably work, but he thought the odds of the attackers having something that specific were unlikely. This felt like a preliminary attack, intended to kill if it could but to draw out capabilities if it didn’t kill. They didn’t know what they needed to use to bypass his defenses yet.

:I don’t like the idea of leaving you behind while there are still people out there who want to kill you,: Serenity sent to Rissa. :I have no idea who’s behind this.:

:Someone who can see the future,: Rissa answered, reminding Serenity of the connection he’d made during the fight. :I don’t know why they want me dead, but a Vala is a seeress, an oracle. It’s an uncommon term, which makes me wonder if it’s been picked up as a title by a group or an individual to make them different.:

Serenity shrugged slightly at that; he couldn’t move too much or he risked dropping the woman he carried. :It sounds like she’s behind this, but why? And why do they believe her? More importantly, how can we find them?:

Hopefully, some of those questions would be answered by the people they’d just captured. Serenity wasn’t sure what to do if they weren’t.

There were people inside the Adventurers’ Guild lobby when they walked in. The conversations died out for a moment as people looked to see who entered, then restarted. From what little Serenity could make out, most of them were ignoring his group; only one person even commented on the “poor idiots that Legion had to go rescue.”

This was obviously not that unusual a sight. It made Serenity reevaluate the garden carts; perhaps they’d been used to carry people before. No wonder Legion seemed prepared when Serenity called. 

It also helped to explain why Blaze spent so much time at the Guild building. Serenity hadn’t really thought about how differently you could approach things if you assumed you had an excellent healer outside the dungeon yet nearby, especially one that wasn’t all that expensive. 

As far as Serenity remembered, that was a luxury Vengeance rarely had. Dungeons on Earth before it was destroyed were dangerous and healers weren’t that much better than mundane nurses and doctors; injuries took time to heal. While that was still true with Blaze, it was at a much lower level; if he could heal it, you were likely to need to recover for a few days instead of weeks or even months. 

Even off Earth, healers as good as Blaze were expensive at any Tier. All too many healers depended on their Skills to handle almost everything, which meant that they had trouble healing anyone higher Tier than themselves and could easily cripple someone with the wrong injury; what Serenity considered basic first aid was a sign of training, after all. Most healers eventually picked up the basics but there was no required curriculum on most planets.

Blaze, on the other hand, was clearly extensively trained and practiced. He could probably heal up to Tier Six, maybe even Seven, since he was Tier Four and highly skilled; past that, he simply didn’t have the Skills or mana to do much, just like Serenity’s Skills went from very strong to painfully weak as he fought higher Tier enemies. Most of Earth’s people, delvers or not, were Tier Two with a decent number that had reached Tier Three; Blaze should have no trouble healing them from even major injuries. Serenity was certain that he’d check for issues and send them for mundane assistance if it was important as well.

Serenity could see how that would change the risk analysis. Pushing a little deeper or a little farther than you knew you could easily handle suddenly looked a lot less dangerous to your future; a few days’ downtime to heal wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as devastating as months. Many people thought that the Voice rewarded it better, too, since you were pushing yourself more.

All of that meant that people coming into the Adventurer’s Guild injured or even being carried wasn’t really worth much note. That seemed very convenient right now.

Serenity followed Rissa into the medical area. It wasn’t much like a doctor’s office; instead, it reminded Serenity of healer’s places he’d seen on other worlds. The room seemed to be paneled using a bluish wood that seemed familiar to Serenity but that he knew didn’t grow on Earth. It was clearly a hard wood of some sort, but that was all he could tell. The floor was covered in mats that Serenity suspected were made of bamboo. 

There were several tables covered in some kind of thin cushion; Serenity might have worried about cleanliness, but this was a dungeon. Aki probably re-created the cushions between each use, just like the mats. For all Serenity knew, she re-made the tables as well. They were all set lower than the examination tables in a modern doctor’s office, were no more than a few inches thick even with the cushions, and had a chair next to them; they were clearly made for someone to sit at the table rather than stand next to it. With how long it could take to heal someone, that made sense.

There were cabinets with supplies, but it took Serenity a moment to realize that some things he’d always associated with doctor’s offices weren’t there. There was no blood pressure cuff on the wall and there was no convenient hand sanitizer dispenser next to the door. Serenity wasn’t going to worry about the blood pressure cuff; Blaze had other ways to figure out what issues people had. He might ask about the hand sanitizer later, however. It might make Blaze’s work easier if there was less risk of infection in open injuries, even though Serenity was certain Blaze already had a way to deal with it.

“Is that the last - Serenity, what did you do to him?” Blaze sounded almost offended as he took a good look at the man Rissa was carrying.

“He ran into Serenity, and no, Serenity also has one,” Rissa answered for Serenity. “Only a few more steps now, then you can lie down on the table. There’s no need to run; Blaze is a healer.”

Blaze snorted and spoke directly to the man Rissa was helping. “If you want to run, do it now before I put too much effort into you. I’d rather not get you half-healed then ruin it because you run before you’re healed.” He paused for a moment. When the man didn’t move, Blaze patted the table. “Get up on this as best you can; there’s a step at the foot if you’re not tall enough, but most people can sort of perch … good enough.” 

Blaze pulled the man the rest of the way onto the table. “You can stay sitting or lie down, whichever you prefer. I’m going to give the others a quick check for anything immediate then come back to you.”

Legion already had the first two on beds, so Serenity picked one nearby to set the woman on. She hadn’t said anything other than curses the entire time, but at least she wasn’t struggling. Well, not struggling much, at least.

Serenity’s guess was that the two mages would require attention first; a dart gun that paralyzed probably had a chance to do more damage than that if the dosage was off. With luck, it would be fast, because the man that Serenity was fairly confident had dead organs probably needed attention more than anyone else.

His shield was quite a bit more terrifying than he’d realized from the description, even if he hadn’t also realized the mana cost. He hadn’t even thought about what it would do to people who tried to bypass it.

Lillene

Lightning isn’t as easy to control as a certain chancellor-turned-emperor would make us believe…