The Lightning Mage

7 | The Troubled Healer

☮❣☮❣☮

Raph planted his face on his hand, deep in thought. He was in his bedroom, sitting in front of a large mirror. The image in the mirror, however, was not a reflection of himself—it was his friend, Shubham, who was also frowning in concentration.

"What kind of scars are they?" Shubham asked.

"They look like scars from regular laceration wounds," Raph explained, his voice tense with stress and exhaustion. "There's no signs of venom, or magic, or spells, at least, not the ones I know of."

"So it sounds like they are most likely inflicted by physical objects."

Raph nodded. "She's a fighter, so that's what I'm assuming as well. She probably got it during training."

"Then those should be easy fixes."

"See, that's what I thought too, but I can't fix them for some reason." Raph rubbed his temple and let out an anxious sigh. "I can't believe I went through four years of medical school only to be stumped by some stupid scars."

"To be fair, those aren't your specialty." Shubham tried to console his friend. "Weren't you trying to get into internal medicine or something? I remember you hating emergency medicine, but that's basically what you do as a quester now."

"Yep. My job is basically on-demand emergency medicine, with a side of life-threatening monsters," Raph said with a blank, resigned stare. "Plus my team leader is always breathing down my neck to learn special spells as if I don't have enough to study already."

He shuddered as he remembered how he was forced to spend weeks learning an energy-boosting spell right before the high-level sea quest in Portland.

"Sorry dude. But that's how it is in independent teams, I guess. Why didn't you join a guild instead?"

"I did try to join Disciples, but I didn't get in."

"I mean smaller guilds, Raph, not the Big Three. Geez. A big guild like Disciples won't want someone who wasn't trained as a quester, no matter how much they needed healers." Shubham leaned back on his chair and gazed into the distance. "Although, if I were you, I would still apply for Dawn Avengers for the sake of it. Just to see if I can meet some of those famous questers, maybe even get an autograph..."

Raph rolled his eyes. "Let me tell you, Shubby, you don't want to work with people from Dawn Avengers. My team leader was from Dawn Avengers, so I'm speaking from experience here."

"Wait, really? You didn't tell me that!" Shubham sat up, looking as though he was about to dive into the mirror and shake Raph up. "Oh my God, tell me, what are they like? Are the stereotypes true?"

"Oh yes, they are. They're insane workaholics, with absolutely zero fear to the point of recklessness, and just... crazy, crazy levels of magic, it's... scary." Raph could feel his soul leaving his poor body just thinking about it. "It's stressful working with them, dude."

"That's why they're the number one guild in the world." Shubham appeared to not have understood a single word Raph had said, as he continued his dreamy, starstruck stare. "Man, you're lucky, Raph, I would kill to meet anybody from Dawn Avengers."

"If you kill me, you can take my spot."

Shubham laughed. "Why did you even join the team anyway?"

"Millie really wanted me to join her, so I did." Raph shrugged.

"Millie?" Shubham tilted his head. "Oh, you mean Millicent Martinez from middle school? She's in your questing team? I didn't even know she's a quester."