The Two Week Curse

by Michael Chatfield

  “Rugrat here is in charge of taking groups out beyond the wall and training you in the use of the crossbow. He will be training the guards and then training all of you. I will be coordinating everything inside the village for its defense. If you have any questions, please see Blaze.

  “This is not only a time of danger; it is a time of opportunity. Just look to the hunters in your ranks. Have you noticed the increase in power? All of them have made it to level six or seven in just one day of working with Rugrat. It will be easy for all of you to do so as well. Alva Village will come out stronger after this all than we did going into it.” Erik looked to them all. They were just scared people, farmers and simple workers who built Alva with their hard work and sweat, looking to expand into the wilderness. Now they found that the wilderness was coming for them in a terrifying manner.

  “First, we must not let your crops go to waste. We will work to harvest everything that you’ve grown in the next few days. As this goes on, Rugrat will be looking to form militia groups. No one is exempt!” Erik said.

  “What if you’re crippled or weak?” an old person yelled out in the crowd.

  “If you are weak, then there will be food to help you gain strength. If you are wounded or hurt, I will be healing people. It will be mandatory for everyone to come and see me for a check-up,” Erik said.

  A stunned noise went through the crowd and Blaze looked at Erik with surprise.

  “Is he one of those famed alchemists or healers?”

  “Why would someone skilled in healing come here to a doomed village?”

  “I am a healer and a fighter,” Erik said loudly, clearing up the small conversations. “I will also be looking to train people in first aid, the art of healing people or making sure that they survive long enough for me to take a look at them. This will not require magic, but simple supplies that we have in village,” Erik said.

  This stunned people even more.

  “All right, everyone make a line. Once you’ve been looked over by myself and Rugrat, you are to meet with the guards, who will assign you a group that you will work with and fight beside,” Erik said, ending the speech.

  He stepped down from the stage as Rugrat stepped forward as well. Erik looked over the person in front of him: a middle-aged woman with a tired appearance. “First I’m going to see if you have any injuries, diagnose you so that I know if you will need to have anything healed,” Erik said.

  “O-okay,” she said.

  Erik took her wrist and sent his Simple Organic Scan through her body, checking her body.

  “How long have you been pregnant for?” Erik asked as he examined her. The formation around his hand changed as he used Focused Heal on the woman’s joints that were in bad condition and to her lower back, where she had multiple issues from hard labor.

  She let out a sigh as the small aches and pain from her body started to go away and she stood up straighter, a bit of the tiredness in her expression dimming. “Pregnant?” she asked, confused.

  Erik smiled. “Well, it looks like Alva will be welcoming a new resident in six more months.” Erik pat her hand. “Since you’re pregnant, you won’t be placed on the front lines but we still need your help to make weapons and defenses.”

  “Yes,” the woman said as the man beside her moved closer.

  “Is what you said real, Sir Erik?” The man seemed to be stuck between shock and fear.

  “It’s just Erik and yes, it is. She’ll be having a boy in six months.” Erik looked at them both. It was clear that they were together.

  “Dammit, Clevus,” the woman said, tears in her eyes as she playfully hit her husband.

  “Well, I can’t do nothing but take responsibility.” The man laughed as she hugged him.

  The crowd congratulated the two and laughed with them. With the shocking news from earlier, hearing something good raised their spirits.

  Erik smiled on as he looked to his next patient, examining them. He winced as he saw the man’s fingers on one hand were all nubs.

  The man pulled his hand back, trying to hide it away, but Erik’s grip was firm.

  “You want little nibblets on your hand or would you like fingers?” Erik asked.

  “Fingers?” The man looked to be in rough shape. In a farming community, unless you could work and you had a complete body, you were useless.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. This won’t be as easy to deal with. How are you with the sight of blood?” Erik asked. Everyone was watching as Erik and Rugrat worked on people.

  Rugrat healed a man with a nasty cough and then a woman with severe migraines.

  “You want to deal with the severe cases needing a rebuild; I’ll do triage and check them over?” Rugrat said, looking to simplify the process.

  “Okay, I’ll work on them in the village hall,” Erik said.

  “Works.” Rugrat nodded. “All right! Line up in front of me. I’ll quickly look you over. I’ll either give you a clean bill of health and send you to the guards, who will organize you and you’ll be looked over later, or I’ll send you to Erik in the village hall for any intensive kind of healing. Once I’ve checked everyone, the remaining people I’ll work to heal myself,” Rugrat said.

  Erik made the man with the missing fingers follow him into the village hall. He took over an empty office and had the man lie on the desk.

  “So what’s your name?” Erik pulled out some Wraith’s Touch salve, applying it to the man’s hand.

  “Storbon,” the young man said simply.

  “Okay, just look at the ceiling and I’m going to just work on your hand here.” Erik pulled over a bucket and put it under the man’s hand as he took out a knife, studying the man’s hand.

  “Will we really be okay against the beast horde?” the man asked Erik after a few moments.

  “We will, if we work together.” Erik checked Storbon’s reaction as he slowly poked him with the knife. There was no reaction.

  Erik went to work. First he put a tourniquet around Storbon’s wrist, then he started to open the skin and then remove the infected or mangled remainder of the hand.

  “Aren’t the beasts really strong? I know my mom said that I should run away from the beasts in the mountain until I was stronger than them,” Storbon said.

  “Your mother sounds like a wise woman,” Erik said, working quickly. Not having to worry about the damage he was doing, he quickly cut the hand back. Thankfully the enchanted blade was much better at cutting than any surgical blade he had used.

  Using a sword to do surgery, oddity fact two hundred and thirty-nine being in the Ten Realms. If it works, then it ain’t stupid no more.

  “How strong are the beasts?” Storbon asked.

  “The weakest, around level six, but then they can reach level ten,” Erik said calmly as the blade went back into his storage ring.

  Storbon sunk into thought.

  The tourniquet had slowed the bleeding down as Erik started to reform the missing bones in the hand as well as the tendons to hold them in place. He built up the hand finger by finger, then went backward, focusing on regrowing the muscle overtop and finally the skin.

  “I’m only level four. How can I fight against a level six creature?” Storbon said.

  “Levels isn’t everything. Trust in Rugrat, myself, and the guards. You’re a strong young lad. If you follow what we say, then we can turn you into a soldier.” Erik wiped sweat off his face, his hand covered in blood.

  Storbon looked at Erik’s hand in alarm and then at his own hand.

  His face went white as a sheet as he saw a fully formed hand. Erik grinned and pulled off the tourniquet. Adding in a Minor Wounds Heal, the hand came alive as blood pumped into it and the tissues were revitalized.

  “I can feel it, really feel it!” Tears appeared in Storbon’s eyes.

  Erik sat there and smiled. When he lost his limbs, he had been stuck in a pit of despair, but seeing Storbon fighting on, he felt bad for wall
owing in his self-pity, and he could understand the feelings that Storbon displayed.

  Erik helped Storbon up and to the door. Already there was a guard there, helping people.

  “Thank you, Mister Erik!” Tears fell down Storbon’s mud-stained face.

  Erik smiled and smacked the man on the back. “You’ve fought this hard for most of your life already. I know there’s a place for you in the Alva militia. Make sure you go report to the guards when the time comes. I want to see you on the wall beside me,” Erik said.

  “I will do as you say!” Storbon pulled himself up.

  Erik sent him on his way and looked at his next patient. “Hello, Miss…?” Erik stretched out the word as a woman who was half bent over was waiting for him next. There was already a small line waiting for him.

  “Louiez, Roska Louiez,” the woman said in a hoarse voice.

  Erik brought her into the room and looked over her injuries. “How did this happen?” Erik asked. The pain she must be in was incredible; she had multiple broken bones that had healed in the wrong way.

  “Got kicked by a horse, left me all broken,” she said.

  Erik helped get her up onto the table and then looked through her body more thoroughly. His eyebrows rose in shock as he found something hidden in her broken body.

  She had nine open Mana gates. This could explain how she had survived so far. If her wounds could be healed, then her strength would surge upward.

  “All right, I’m going to put you to sleep, but once you wake up, you’ll be much better,” Erik said with a smile.

  Roska looked up at him. She was a hard woman, unlike Storbon who had hope and optimism. She had lost that long ago.

  Erik pulled out another concoction he had bought in Chonglu from the apothecaries, Winter’s Sleep. He took out a drop and put it in Roska’s mouth.

  She swallowed it as Erik held her wrist, checking her pulse and examining what was happening inside her body, ready to act if anything went wrong with the drugs.

  She lost consciousness. Erik saw that there were no complications and started to get to work.

  He pulled out a blunt metal rod. He took out a blade. Making sure that there was no reaction to being stabbed, he healed the wound and put the blunt object to work, re-breaking the bone and putting it back into the correct position before fusing it together with Focused Heal.

  ***

  Rugrat sat at the front of the line. He’d cleared out the worst cases, passing them to Erik. There were only four or five people who were in need of his care. A village out here in the middle of nowhere wasn’t able to support many people who were heavily injured.

  It was harsh, but a reality of being out here in the wilderness.

  Colds and hidden issues were simple enough to heal with Rugrat’s Focused Heal or Minor Heal Wounds. He simply poured in energy until the issue was resolved; it was simple but effective. Rugrat cycled through people, sending them to the guards, who organized people, sending some off to building groups that Blaze was organizing, to training groups that would be called up for training with crossbows in the coming days.

  Most were grouped together but sent back to their farms to prepare to harvest their crops.

  Rugrat finished healing those in his line and headed over to the barracks where the first three groups of people had begun training.

  The groups were made up of ten people, for a total of eighteen groups. Three had been sent to help in making crossbows, arrows, or defensive instruments. Five had been dismissed back to their farms to harvest crops. Five were taken to the woods to gather wood. Three more groups were assigned to the guards to learn how to fight. The last twenty had been released back to their roles as their jobs were necessary to the running or management of the village, from the granaries, to the newly created kitchen staff, essentially support groups to take care of the storing and use of foodstuffs.

  Each of the groups in training had three guards or hunters with them to show them how to use their crossbows.

  As such the nearly two hundred strong village was put to work.

  Rugrat listened in on the lectures before grabbing onto his five-man scouting party that was made from hunters and guards. They all had their own weapons, thankfully.

  Right now they had a total of twelve crossbows, including the seven that they had scrounged up from within the village.

  “All right, everyone get in nice and close.” Rugrat showed them a map of the city and the surrounding area. He pointed out where he wanted to patrol together and his aim to scout out the enemy and slim down the number of boars in the area. There were two hunters from the last day. Rugrat found that they were willing to learn and take orders from him yesterday; seeing their potential, he elected to bring them out again. One, to bolster the number of people who could handle themselves and two, to show off to the others how strong they could become if they listened and obeyed.

  It seemed to have Rugrat’s desired effect.

  All of them paid attention before Rugrat checked their gear and then they headed off on their mission.

  Rugrat looked over to the village hall as he was leaving. Erik was still working on the bad cases, but there were only three more people left to go.

  It was time to build their foundation in Alva Village.

  Chapter: Harvest

  Erik came out of the village hall with his last patient. They thanked Erik profusely as they left.

  The village seemed to be filled with energy as Blaze came over to Erik. He quickly updated Erik on everything that had happened while he was healing people.

  “Good. Well, it’s time that we looked into that harvest.” Erik moved toward the village exit and the fields beyond.

  Blaze followed him. They found people with tools sitting around and talking to one another casually.

  “Well, let’s begin!” Erik clapped his hands. He moved forward into the field. People moved around lazily.

  “Does he think just because he commands it, he can make plants grow?”

  “I heard only alchemists can do so,” another said.

  “These crops still need a month more to grow at least,” another farmer opined.

  Their voices weren’t quiet and Erik easily heard them. He didn’t grow angry; it was understandable that they were confused.

  “Plant Cultivation,” Erik said quietly. A spell formation appeared around him on the ground. It was simple compared to the Focused Heal and Minor Wounds Heal, but it was a much larger area of effect spell.

  Erik closed his eyes as he focused on the Mana draining out of him to support the spell formation. He adjusted so that his expenditure matched up with his Mana Regeneration.

  All around him, plants started to grow within the range of his Plant Cultivation spell.

  Erik used what he knew from Focused Heal and Minor Wounds Heal. Plant Cultivation was a much simpler spell, but as he changed his thought process around the spell, actually changing the spell’s framework, less of his power was wasted.

  The speed of the plants’ growth increased with Erik’s smaller changes.

  “Uh, when do I know they’re ready for harvest?” Erik asked out loud. Sure, he knew the spell, but he wasn’t a farmer nor did he know these plants.

  The farmers, who had been looking at him slack-jawed, recovered quickly. It looked as though he wasn’t some growing god.

  “That should be good, if you want to move onto the next area!” Blaze said, the first to recover.

  Erik moved forward. The Plant Cultivation spell was centered around him, so as he moved, he pulled it with him; with his footsteps, plants grew all around him.

  “Would you be able to tell me about farming? The more I know about the plants, then I should be able to increase the speed they grow at.”

  Erik’s words shocked the farmers slightly, but Blaze was starting to get used to expecting that nothing was simple with Erik or Rugrat.

  “I’d be happy to help.” Blaze looked to th
e farmers who had been lounging around. “Well, what are you looking at? Don’t you know how to harvest crops?”

  His words lit a fire under their ass as they were jolted into action.

  “What do you wish to know about farming, Mister West?” Blaze asked.

  “Might as well start from the beginning,” Erik said seriously.

  “From the very beginning, like clearing the fields?” Blaze questioned.

  “Might as well. I’m going to be out here awhile and who knows what might help out,” Erik said.

  Blaze cleared his throat and organized his thoughts. He quickly told Erik how they cleared the land first, removing the trees and other vegetation. They would then burn the remainder down and till the fields, mixing the ashes in and taking out the rocks that were underneath.

  Then they would plant their crops, making sure to water them. Then it was necessary to watch the weather: too much or too little of sun, water, or nutrients in the soil and the plants would wither and die.

  Erik listened to it all as he looked over the plants and checked on his spell. He gained an understanding of how to tell when the plants were ready for harvest; he learned how to harvest them as well.

  He was thankful that no one had seen him “harvesting” the different plants in the Beast Mountains. In the eyes of these farmers, let alone alchemists, it would be seen as sacrilege and a near thing that he didn’t ruin the different ingredients.

  The farmers might have been slow to react, but now, seeing Erik walking through the fields, leaving ready to harvest plants in his wake, they eagerly set to harvesting their crops.

  It wasn’t until the sun had set that Erik cancelled his Plant Cultivation spell.

  He let out a tired sigh. The farmers were lagging behind. Even with them all working together, they weren’t as fast as Erik was. “Finish up what you’re working on and we can start fresh in the morning,” Erik said.

  This gained their agreement. Instead of seeing him as an outsider, they’d become closer to him as they saw him take the time to learn about how to be a farmer and worked with them to grow their crops.