Chapter 65: Healing (Patreon)

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From his position in front of the assailant, Cayden could read the writing above the contraption that marked this one as having the strength of a level-ten goblin, along with a crude rendition of a short green monster wielding a club.

Cayden had cleared a goblin dungeon near Avernon – not his favorite, due to the traps – but he figured this was still a good starting point. Starting with a monster he’d already fought would let him get a better feel for how the assailants compared to the real thing. So, without any further wait, he pulled the lever.

The pole swung out and impacted Cayden’s shoulder with a whap, and he took an involuntary step back – not out of pain, but because he had forgotten that his [Inertia] was set lower than his original. With a flex of will and mana, he reset his [Inertia] to its base value. For withstanding the hit, a higher [Inertia] would be better, but Cayden figured the best way to follow Instructor Barry’s rules was to treat his skill as a limited resource, despite the fact that [Inertia] modifications would remain even if he ran out of mana.

In regards to the hit from the assailant…the pain and injury were practically nonexistent, which tracked for how much damage he figured a goblin could do to him. Perhaps if one caught him just right with its club in his temple or throat it would rattle him, but he didn’t think there was any way for a mere goblin to seriously hurt him anymore.

Nodding to himself, Cayden stepped away from the goblin assailant. Only to turn right back and start cranking the handle attached to the pulley a moment later when he heard Instructor Barry yelling at another student for not resetting their assailant.

He finished a moment later, and the next student in line stepped up for his chance while Cayden walked back behind the crowd to observe.

While he didn’t think he’d get much from being attacked by more of the earlier assailants, it couldn’t hurt to know what monsters they represented, so he strolled behind the lines, observing each of the different monster names and attached images. He and Jeremy had gotten separated in the initial rush for spots, and he spotted his friend in line for the tear-bird assailant but moved on without calling out. While it was nice having a friend in the class, he doubted the formine would be able to keep up with his vitality on this exercise.

Fewer and fewer students waited in front of the assailants as Cayden moved down the line and the monsters got stronger until he stopped in front of an assailant that didn’t have a line: a level twenty orc chieftain. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the machine and pulled the lever, huffing out a breath as the pole slammed into the side of his leg. He limped forward and started cranking the handle to reset the machine as he looked down at his wound.

Unlike the previous pole, this one had small spikes poking out of the wood at regular intervals, and blood dripped down his leg where one of the spikes managed to pierce his skin. The picture of the orc chieftain depicted him wielding a spear, so Cayden assumed the spikes on the pole were meant to simulate its more dangerous weapon. He wasn’t sure how they would replicate a sword or another bladed weapon, but he resolved to check the pole more closely on the next assailant before pulling the lever. Resilient as he was, he didn’t want to lose a limb in a training exercise, something that seemed like much more of a possibility after facing this assailant.

Though his leg was bruised and bleeding, Cayden had faced much worse many times over his dozens of delves, and he decided to forgo healing for the moment. It had only been a few minutes, but there were already quite a few crowds around each of the six healer students. Four of the healers were clustered near the beginning of the line where most of the students were still testing out the early assailants, while two waited closer to where Cayden was by the more dangerous machines.

Blood dripped down his leg, and though he was bruised, overall it wasn’t much of an injury. After giving himself a few seconds to collect himself and shaking out his leg a few times, he was able to walk to the next assailant in line without a limp. He watched as a student activated the assailant, a sickening crack resounding as they were hit in the leg by a pole that simulated a monster that was obviously too high for their level. The student didn’t seem to be in as much pain as Cayden expected, however, merely wincing as they looked down at their crooked leg – Cayden suspected one of the potions of numb pain was involved.

He stepped forward and helped the student to their feet. He was a troll, so the task was more difficult than it otherwise might’ve been.

“Thanks, mate,” the boy said to Cayden after he was back upright and balanced on one leg, revealing his non-noble heritage, before he proceeded to hop towards the nearest healer. His broken leg flopped about sickeningly with each bounce, and he’d only gone a few yards before the healer noticed his approach and rushed over.

Cayden watched a few of the other students who had been walking towards the ‘stronger’ assailants turn around and walk back to the more crowded section of the line upon seeing the display, but Cayden wasn’t dissuaded. Trolls had an abnormally high vitality, both due to a racial skill and from vitality being one of their primary stats. But taking a hit came down to more than just the number after ‘vitality’ on his status screen. Skills and mentality made a huge difference in what attacks someone was able to withstand.

And if there was one thing Cayden was confident in – one thing that he was unquestionably good at – it was his ability to take hits.

He finished winding up the crank to reset the assailant and stepped into position. Then, after only the amount of time it took to memorize the monster that this assailant represented – a cave rhino – he pulled the lever.

He didn’t flinch away from the pole, instead tensing the muscles of his leg where he knew it would impact. Then, with a mighty thwap, it hit, and Cayden stumbled back from the force.

Thankfully, it hit his other leg from where the previous assailant had impacted, so he didn’t have to worry about the injuries compounding. He shook out this leg.

It would bruise, but like the last assailant, it was nothing that he couldn’t easily ignore. He cranked the machine back to its starting position before moving to the next assailant in line.

For the next thirty minutes, he continued like this. Step in front of an assailant, memorize the monster, get hit, crank, and then move on to the next in line. Each assailant hit him in a slightly different place, which let him continue without breaking for healing – an allowance likely made by the creators to enable exactly what he was doing.

At first, he had to wait in line behind a few other students as they tested out assailants, typically making their way directly to a healer immediately afterward. But after five or so assailants, he was the only one in his area still using the contraptions and was able to proceed to the next assailant in line as soon as he was able to shake off the pain from the previous.

Dozens of hits impacted him all over his body. He quickly learned how they simulated monsters with swords or other bladed weapons – a half-inch blade was mounted to the edge of the pole to ensure that it wouldn’t cut further than what was easily repairable.

Unfortunately for someone like Cayden with [Resistance] at level eleven, coupled with his [Skin of Stone] skill which further increased his resistance to slashing attacks, this just resulted in an extremely narrow bruise wherever the edge of the pole’s blade impacted. It wasn’t enough to force him to break for healing, but the bladed assailants’ attacks were definitely the most painful of those he faced.

As he progressed, the assailants gradually got stronger and stronger as the poles got thicker and counterweights got heavier. His strength wasn’t quite at a level to match his vitality, so it took longer and longer for him to reset each assailant before he could move on to the next, but he was fine with that. The injuries were accumulating, and he needed the extra time to recover before facing the next in line.

At one point he noticed Instuctor Barry coming over and watching him carefully as he worked his way down the line, but after a minute the dullahan left without saying a word, so Cayden continued. Over and over and over he got hit, taking the blows without flinching, each time imagining he stood between the monster pictured and Elise or Tiana.

Until finally, he cranked up the weight of the most recent assailant and then turned to the next one in line – only to realize that there wasn’t another one.

He was at the end of the line.

Or, actually, it wasn’t the end – he could see where more assailants were ensconced in the shadows behind the next paneling of the wall of the arena. But the paneling hadn’t been removed, Instructor Barry evidently not thinking that the stronger assailants would be needed for this class.

For a moment, he considered tracking down the instructor and asking for permission to continue, but then quickly dismissed it. The class was close to ending, and Cayden was smart enough to realize he was nearing his limits. He might be able to endure through a few more assailants, but if they continued to get stronger at the rate that they had been, he’d be forced to get healing or potentially suffer a more serious injury within the next dozen.

So he turned away from the paneling, only to start in surprise at how alone he was. The vast majority of the class were gathered around the first quarter of the assailants, each of the machines having a line of four to five students waiting to use them. A few students had pushed further up the line – the gorgon girl was the furthest along at almost three-quarters of the way, but she was looking significantly worse for wear than Cayden was feeling.

In his focus on the training, he hadn’t realized how far ahead he’d pushed of the rest of the class. He knew he was leading, but he’d thought that was only a matter of speed. Looking at them now, though, it was clear that most of the students already were at their limits of what they could safely handle, and he noticed a number of the students waiting their turns in line were shooting furtive looks his way.

Ignoring them, he focused on searching for the nearest healer, finding them standing in the shadows next to an assailant near the gorgon girl. While the majority of healers were clustered near the beginning where most of the frontline students were, it seemed they had one follow those that moved further up the line in case they were needed.

He stiffly walked towards the healer, feeling every one of his accumulated injuries with each step. Only when he was a few feet away did he realize he recognized the healer – it was his fourth roommate, Delphia.

“Hey, Delphia,” he said, attempting to be polite. “I think I could use some healing, if you’re able.”

All of her face save her pale, narrow chin was shrouded in shadows, but her hood bobbed in a way that looked like a nod as she stepped up next to Cayden. He figured the shadows must have been part of a racial skill, as there was no way that her hood should have been casting shadows that dark and deep at this time of the morning.

She leaned close as she circled Cayden, examining each of his wounds in detail.

“Um, so how does this work?” Cayden asked, feeling awkward as his roommate stood closer than he was used to, peering even closer at where a spike from one of the later assailants had punched through his shirt’s sleeve into his upper shoulder. “Do I need to take my shirt off?” Luckily, he had learned his lesson after the first class and only wore a cheap shirt that he wouldn’t mind losing. Wearing armor would have been better for this lesson, and many of the other students had taken to wearing their own armor to class, but Cayden wasn’t quite rich enough yet to replace his if it was destroyed as regularly as he expected his shirts would be. Besides, at his level of vitality, his leather armor didn’t add much to what his skin could already handle.

“No!” Delphia squeaked as her hood flopped from her shaking her head. It was the first time he had heard his roommate speak, and her voice was higher than what he expected. He shouldn’t have, but for some reason he assumed her voice would mimic the look her dark robe inspired: deep and malevolent, or perhaps sultry and seductive. Not high and squeaky.

She reached out and placed a pale finger on Cayden’s forearm, the rest of her hand and arm hidden beneath her voluminous robe. And almost instantly, he felt his wounds disappearing as if they were never there.

“Whoa, that’s much better than a healing potion,” Cayden said, surprised. For all that he’d been healed many, many times, this was the first time he’d been healed via magical means rather than alchemical means. And he had to say that he liked this method much more. Even a moderate healing potion would leave him sore for a few hours after the hits he’d taken, yet in just a few seconds, Delphia’s healing had him feeling as good as new.

But before he could remark further on her skill, Delphia stumbled, and Cayden reached out, barely catching her arm through her robe before she fell.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Too much,” she said in a whisper before pulling a potion from a pocket and tossing it back in a practiced motion. For almost a full minute they stood like that, Cayden supporting her weight while Delphia did who knows what, until suddenly Delphia looked at her arm and flinched away from Cayden’s grip, apparently once again able to stand on her own as she backed away with cautious steps.

“Er, well, thanks,” Cayden said. “For the healing, I mean.” Delphia just stared at him. Or at least Cayden assumed she stared. Her hood was pointed in his direction, but he had no idea where she was actually looking or what expression she might have worn on her face. “See you later, I guess,” he said. And with a final nod of thanks, he fled the awkward interaction.

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