Healing and Reinforcements

Healing and Reinforcements

Healing and Reinforcements

After a brief discussion, it was decided that I would go to heal the gathering spot. Three guards wouldn’t be enough for such a task, so we opted to bring with us the idling apprentice knights who had barely helped defeat the beast and quickly obtained their minor share of the ingredients.

We entered the yellow glow of the gathering spot and saw the clear line between the lush greenery and the black sludge where the ternisbefallen had rampaged. In total, about a quarter of the clearing was entirely destroyed. It was a serious amount of damage.

“This is nightmarish,” one of the apprentices said. “We need to remedy this havoc, else our studies are going to suffer.”

I nodded in agreement while pondering whether I could even handle performing this healing ritual. Unlike the one after the trombe attack, I actually needed to grow plants to some degree; otherwise, the students would immediately face problems in class.

“I will heal enough that Ehrenfest does not fall behind in its classes,” I said. “I trust that you will all step in if any feybeasts appear.”

“Right!”

Upon landing in the gathering spot, I turned to look at Philine in the back seat. “Philine, you must not leave,” I said. “Wait here until my return.”

“Understood.”

And so, I climbed out of my Pandabus alone. I didn’t want to step into the swamp of black sludge, so I had stopped right before it.

“We retainers shall stay by Lady Rozemyne. Everyone, secure the perimeter,” Leonore instructed, having the highbeast-riding apprentice knights disperse and stand guard. She and Hartmut were standing to my left and right, respectively, while Judithe guarded my back. We couldn’t see any feybeasts around at present—they had all fled while the ternisbefallen was rampaging and flinging black sludge everywhere—but we were better safe than sorry.

I formed my schtappe, closed my eyes to concentrate, and then visualized Flutrane’s staff. It had a long, slender grip dotted with small feystones, and at the very tip was a large green feystone about the size of an adult’s fist surrounded by a frame of gold. It was the first divine instrument I had used.

“ Streitkolben .”

No sooner had I spoken the word than Flutrane’s staff appeared in my grip. I stuck it into the ground, took it firmly in both hands, and slowly began pouring mana into it.

“O Goddess of Water Flutrane, bringer of healing and change. O twelve goddesses who serve by her side. Please hear my prayer and lend me your divine strength. Grant me the power to heal your sister, the Goddess of Earth Geduldh, who has been wounded by those who serve evil. I shall offer this divine note to thee, casting ripples of the highest order. May you fill the world with your royal color to mine own heart’s content.”

The large feystone embedded in the staff emitted a bright flash. I was familiar with this feeling of a storm growing around me as my mana stirred. My hair was blown by the wind, and as my clothes rustled, I knew that the healing ritual would succeed.

A moment later, there came a second flash from the ground beneath me, and light the same color as the staff’s feystone began running across the earth in lines. They were all of uniform thickness, and they flowed from the base of the staff like water running through canals.