Shaking his head, he put his hand on my left wrist and said, “This is insane. ’Healing Touch.’”
My arm tingled. The cut closed up and the stinging pain disappeared. A quick check of my screen, this time just thinking ‘Status,’ showed that I was at full health and no bleed.
Mike’s jaw nearly hit his chest.
“It worked, and that’s the difference between a doctor and a Healer,” I said lowering my arm with a smile. “You can probably still sew up wounds and give people medicine and things like that. But unless you’re out of Mana, you won’t need to.”
“When I… when I said it, I felt something. I don’t know how to describe it. But I got a message that said…” He fumbled with his words for a second. “Something like ‘Healing Touch heals James for 3 HP. Full health reached, Slow Bleed effect removed.’”
“Yes!” I said, with a little fist pump. I used my right hand: my left arm was still bloody. Healing Touch didn’t clean up the blood, apparently. No big deal. “That’s what I was hoping for, it does work just like healing in a game.”
The doctor’s eyes had gone from my no-longer-injured arm to the hand he’d touched me with. “That’s… it’s… that’s magic. It doesn’t make any sense. Where’d all those new cells come from? The energy, the nutrients? It wasn’t that deep a cut but it would have taken a week to completely close up like that.” Shaking his head, he reached out and grabbed my wrist again. His training made him subconsciously avoid the blood since he had no gloves and I wasn’t in danger, but he turned my arm this way and that, peering intently at the area where the cut had been. There wasn’t even a scar.
“You said it, Mike,” I replied. “It’s magic. It’s the System. Check your Status.”
“’Status,’” he said. His eyes defocused and he let go of my arm again. “I… my Mana says ‘112 of 140.’ I… used Mana?” Those bright blue eyes locked onto mine, his whole face an unanswered question.
“Yep. Just like I used it to pop that bottle,” I said, pointing at the remains. “I don’t know where it comes from or how it works. But it obviously does. And that’s just a Special Skill. I bet a Healer class will get abilities that make that look like… like a Band-Aid on a skinned knee compared to open-heart surgery. In some games, they can raise the dead.”
Dan’s lips were working soundlessly. “I… my whole life I’ve tried to help people who were hurt.” His voice solidified and his eyes burned. “This. I need this. I need more. What do I do?”
“Do like Danielle did,” said Joe. “Ask about Healer classes.”
“‘Status.’ Show Healer classes,’” Mike barked out. “I… I don’t know what any of this means. There’s so much.” He stared at me again. “What do I do?” His words were rushed, desperate, like a kid begging for something from its mother.
“In most games,” I said with some hesitation, “Healing powers come from… well, from Gods or spirits. They’re usually mystical. Do you see something that says ‘Cleric’ or ‘Priest?’”
“No,” he said immediately. “I don’t believe in God or any of that hippie crap.” I winced and hoped nobody was touchy about religion. Including the System. “The first class listing I see is ‘Mana Healer.’ What’s a ‘Mana Healer?’” As before, by asking the question, the System produced an answer, though only he could see it. “It says they use Mana to hasten natural healing, remove status effects, and reconstruct injuries that can’t be healed even with the System’s regeneration effects.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what the rules are here, but in some systems, things like losing a limb don’t fix themselves without magic. Sounds like it might be the same here. And ‘status effects’ means things like bleeding, or being poisoned or diseased. Things that keep hurting you over time.”
“‘Class Mana Healer,’” he snapped out without hesitation. So much for class shopping. “Now what? Point to Constitution, right?”
“Yeah, I think…”
“‘Point to Constitution.’ There, I got ten hit points too. Class Skills?” His head moved up and down slowly as he read from an invisible list. “I can only have two?” Blinking and shaking his head, he focused on me yet again. “How do I get more?”
“Calm down, Mike,” I said. “Look at the list. You can have two now. You’ll get more as you level. That means as you get experience for doing things. I don’t know how fast. But you will get more.”
He took a deep breath and called up the list once more. “Okay. The list is mostly things that say ‘Heal,’ like ‘Heal Poison’ and ‘Heal Disease’ and ‘Heal Light Wounds.’ There’s a few that are different, like… wait, ‘Cause Light Wounds?’ What kind of sick shit is that?”
“Wow,” said Anthony. “It’s like he’s a priest, only with no God or whatever. Mike, that’s a spell Healers can use to defend themselves, that’s what it’s for.”
Or if their Gods are evil, I thought to myself with a shudder. I wonder how many Satanists are going to go Dark Cleric kind of paths?
“Fuck that,” said Mike forcefully. “What should I pick?”
“The usual start is ‘Heal Light Wounds’ and some kind of buff…” I paused. This was going to take forever if I let myself get bogged down. “Something that makes party members stronger. But given our perks I think I’d say ‘Heal Disease’ or ‘Heal Poison.’ That way if we do have to fight and one of us gets poisoned or diseased, you can help them.”
“‘Heal Light Wounds,’” he said. “Okay, got it. I want the disease spell, but… people don’t get poisoned a lot. They didn’t. Will they now?”
“If this is like the games we play,’ said Joe, “They probably will. Poison is really common in animals and traps and even on weapons. And poison kills you quick. Diseases you at least have some time to deal with. Usually.” He looked at Anthony and I and we nodded.
“Okay. ‘Heal Poison.’ Got it.” He looked up, dismissing his status screen. “Now what?”
“I’d say get packed up after Samantha picks her Class Skills, and the rest of us move on to the next now that we know we have a healer,” I said.
We went around again as we had with the perks. And once again, Susan just sat there and stared into space, with the occasional caustic remark to remind us she thought we were all crazy and/or stupid.
Picking classes and skills went a little faster than perks, since we had three gamers to steer us through. The main surprise was that when Mandy wanted a class that she could use to defend herself, she was offered something called “Punisher” but that I might have named “War Dominatrix.” It was a fighting class, but sounded more like a gladiator than a soldier.
Surprising no one but possibly Danielle and Samantha, she even turned out to have a custom-made bullwhip in her luggage. The look in her eyes the first time she cracked it in the living room after receiving her Class Skill “Whiplash,” which made her whip cut like a metal blade, was a little disturbing. It gouged the Hell out of the coffee table.