Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

The night sky was beautiful this time of year. Vera knew that for a fact, having studied it almost every night since age 10. Years had been spent looking up at the stars, counting them, memorizing their positions, and mentally drawing in the gods each constellation was supposed to represent.

It gave her a sense of calm. A fixture in an ever-changing world that she could focus on to relax when it all became a little too much. When reality crashed down and action became a requirement for the survival of all.

Tonight was one of those nights.

“Oh, Reynold! I didn’t expect to see you out here at such a time!”

She was sitting in the royal garden, found at the very top of the castle. It was restricted for usage by only the royals themselves, their closest servants, the gardeners tending to the plants, and, finally, the royal healer who sometimes needed some herb or another.

“Princess Vera!” Reynold replied, the robed old healer stopping in surprise at the sight of Vera sitting on one of the benches. “I could say the same to you. Are you not freezing out here in the cold? I can have one of the other servants bring you a coat.”

“We are nearing the summer months, Reynold. A slight chill like this is no problem for me,” Vera assured the old man. The very same man who had been in charge of keeping her in good health since the day she was born. A man that she had been taught to trust by everybody else she had grown up with. “However, I do lack company tonight, and I’m having trouble recognizing some of the dimmer stars in the sky. Could you help me?”

Reynold was the one who’d taught her the trick of focusing on the stars at night. He was the spark, at least, not being around when she fully delved into the hobby.

“Oh, princess, I am in a hurry—”

“Please? It will not take long, and we both know that you could point out every star with your eyes closed.”

“Well… not every star,” Reynold said, the averted eyes making Vera smile. Complimenting others was truly the secret ingredient to persuasion. “If it doesn’t take long, I suppose I can help you.”

With a slightly uneven gait, the royal healer joined Vera on the bench. She did not miss how gentle he was around the small satchel on his side. She didn’t comment, however, focusing on his words as he started pointing out every star that she allegedly needed assistance with. Each of the dots had its tale, and Reynold was more than happy to explain each of them. For somebody who was pressed for time, he was weirdly forthcoming with the detailed histories.

Is it the old ties holding you back, or are you fearing the consequences of your actions?

More and more minutes passed, and the moon had moved several degrees over the sky by the time that Reynold sighed and ceased with the explanations.

“It’s truly been a delight helping you, Princess Vera, but I’m afraid I must take my leave,” Reynold said. He didn’t rise from the bench yet, though, as it would have been rude to do without her permission.

“Ah, of course,” Vera replied, her smile not as bright as before. “You wouldn’t want to keep my father waiting, would you?”

The first crack in the glass veil.

“I suppose so, though he…”

Reynold’s reply ended earlier than it was likely meant to, the royal healer frozen as he looked at Vera. Eyes were wider than normal, breath caught in the old man’s throat, and a paleness began to spread over his skin.

A single crack made so many more appear a moment later.

“Is that not where you’re hoping to visit, tonight of all nights?” Vera questioned innocently, the smile not reaching her eyes anymore. “Outside of normal hours, outside of the timeframe where your assistants are present, but just within the hours where the guards would let you in without question to help my father sleep peacefully. A well-thought plan, Reynold. No matter what you might’ve planned to do tonight, I can at least admire the work you put into getting away with it.”

Her final words woke up the old man, the paleness increasing while the lying tongue began to move once more.

“Prin- Vera, what exactly are you implying here?” Reynold questioned. His eyes tried to grow harsh, to take the role of aged wisdom, but the mild shaking in his hands ruined that image faster than it could form. A pity.

“It’s less implying and… more just a fact,” Vera replied, tilting her head a little to the side. The last few embers of her smile disappeared alongside her words, leaving a face empty of emotion. If her old friend had been younger, he might have tried to run at this point. “For how long have you served under my father, Reynold? You’ve been by his side since before this country formed, nearly since the start of the war, so it has to be a little over 50 years.”

“56 years this year’s winter,” Reynold mutely corrected.

“56 years of honest service. First as an assistant to the local healer, then a medic on the frontlines, before saving my father and hundreds of others from mortal wounds and getting promoted to the position of Royal Healer because of it. So much influence over the future, so much value brought to the people of our kingdom, and yet you go ahead and do this,” she continued. Not all of this had been revealed to her by the healer himself. Some of the finer details had been brought into the open through research and listening in when nobody was meant to be around. “And now you throw it away for what? I already know about the large sum of gold that you will be rewarded for your work, but is there more to it? Are you being threatened, Reynold? Is your family in danger if you don't accept this task?”

She asked as if she didn’t already know the truth. Vera told herself that she was just being sure, but deep inside she knew better. The in-depth work put into stopping this attempt made it clear what Reynold’s motives were.

His silence spoke volumes.

“...They aren’t,” Vera concluded. Reynold just looked at her blankly, fear having left him, replaced with a deep emptiness. “No other motive than more wealth than you could ever hope to spend in a lifetime.”

He kept silent. Maybe that made the old healer feel better about what he’d been about to go through with. Vera wasn’t truly sure but neither did she care much, matching his silence with her own.

Somebody willing to poison her father in his sleep didn’t deserve much more.

“I didn’t do it for myself,” Reynold finally said after a minute of silence. Not a good start. “I did it for my family. While I won’t be able to provide for them in just a few years, this gold could’ve filled their pockets for decades to come.”

“Do you think your wife, your kids, your grandkids would look at you trying to poison my father with that same perspective?” she asked, the old healer once again falling into a state of silence. She sighed. “This is treason, Reynold. Treason of the highest order, beyond what could normally be done. It’s not just a killing, but staging it to look like a natural heart attack. Do you not know the punishment that comes from this?”

Eyes widened again.

“How do you know-” Reynold began to question, but Vera cut him off before he could start.

“I know everything that happens within these walls, Reynold. That small vial in your pocket has enough of your little concoction to make my father die a hundred times over, and yet even the best searches wouldn’t be able to discover that it wasn’t simply age that had killed him,” she continued. “Now, please answer my question. If discovered, what would the punishment be for your actions?”

…

“My public execution,” the old healer answered, clearly intending to stop at that if not for Vera’s pointed look. “And the execution of my family, on the grounds of their possible inclusion in my plans.”

“Normally it would just be for your death that came from this, but the fortune was never meant to be delivered to you but to your family. Without their consent, you brought them into this act of treason and signed their deaths for the chance of wealth, all in an act of so-called selflessness,” Vera regaled. She didn’t comment as tears began to form in Reynold’s eyes, as the man hunched over and covered his face with his hands as the muted cries began to be heard. The old healer, the person Vera had respected for most of her life, was broken. Bad choices, a time of weakness, and now it was all meant to be ruined. “If this gets out, your family will die, Reynold.”

Hands became wet with tears for another dozen moments before the old healer froze. He’d caught on, slowly straightening his back and looking into her eyes with no small amount of desperation.

“‘If,’” he repeated, making her smile. Weakness or not, his mind still had some sharpness left in it. He could still see the intended wording when needed. “You act as if you haven’t already alerted the guards of this, Vera.”

“Oh, every servant under my employ knows of your treason, Reynold, but… the royal guards and everybody else has yet to have heard even the slightest hint of such a thing,” Vera corrected. She didn’t smile. She felt like it but held it down. “The death of your entire family is not yet set in stone.”

Tears no longer flowed, there was no longer fear in the old man’s eyes, and Reynold seemed to gain some small flicker of hope deep within.

“Princess… What exactly do you require of me?” Reynold questioned, eyes narrowing in confusion. “I’m not demented enough to think you would let me live past this act of treason.”

You’re still sharp at the end, Reynold.

“You’re right,” Vera said, reaching one hand into the sky. Reynold only looked at it in confusion for a moment, until a scroll and a pen manifested in her grasp. An act meant to be impossible for her, according to what the old healer knew of her. “I want you to sign this.”

She handed the scroll and pen to the old healer, Reynold accepting and immediately opening it to read the contents. Understanding the implications didn’t take long. The contract was hardly longer than some hundred words. Blunt in wording, blunt in how it was meant to be done, and very clear in how none were allowed to know about the document at any level whatsoever.

“You… want me to sign a contract stating that I will immediately relocate to my private quarters, prepare for sleep like normal, take the poison intended for your father, and go to sleep as if nothing was amiss,” Reynold said. It wasn’t a question, both of them knowing that it was exactly what Vera wanted. “I’d call you an idiot if you expected me to sign and then follow through with something like this, but… that glow in the letters isn’t for show, is it?”

Sharp eyes as well.

“It is not,” Vera answered, smiling as the old healer looked at her in a whole new way. For the past decades, she’d possessed this gift, and he had never had the slightest clue. “If you sign this, I’ll make sure your family can move away in peace. They’ll be granted a small fortune to help with your ‘unfortunate passing,’ and nobody will ever learn the truth.”

“You didn’t put that into the contract.”

Meaning she wasn’t magically forced to hold her word.

“I did not, but, unlike some present, I have not grown into the habit of breaking others’ trust.”

…

“There’s little I can say against that, I suppose,” Reynold said with a sense of finality, taking the pen and writing his name at the bottom of the contract. Vera felt a pull from her magical core, letting the energy leave her as sigils formed on the old healer’s hands. They flashed in a dark red before disappearing, the rules of the contract etched into the man’s spirit.

[Single-Person Linear-Objective Contract] has been activated! Cost of activation: 127MP

With how much Mana she had spent writing the contract to begin with, the activation cost was higher than she’d expected. Perhaps it was the last addition that had caused it? Further study was needed.

“Before you go, I need to exert the ability granted to me by the last paragraph in the contract,” Vera said, stopping Reynold from leaving the bench and instead continuing to look her way. The old man wished to leave with pride, but, before that, she needed some answers. Truthful answers, made possible by him magically being stopped from lying. “Who is it that employed you for this task?”

The one part of this entire ordeal that Vera was still unsure about. Everything else fit perfectly into place, but this continued to mystify her.

“You don’t know already?” Reynold asked back before clutching at his throat as an unseen pressure seemed half a breath away from snapping his head right off. “I had been hoping you would know, as… I don’t know either. I never saw their face or met with them, instead going through an intermediary who handles deals like this on the black market. We met-”

“In the Lionheart Inn at the east end of the city?” Vera cut in, the old man nodding at her words. Internally, she sighed, deflating as another possible route to answers became dead. “Do you have any guesses on who it might’ve been that wanted my father dead?”

“Sadly not,” the Royal Healer replied. He scratched at his throat as phantom pains kept appearing. Vera would know, each minor pulse drawing the slightest sliver of energy from her core. “Somebody with enough financial backing to offer such wealth while having access to illegal herbs that even the royal gardens don’t possess. And, before you ask, I know that their wealth stretches far because I have previously worked with them and was paid ten years' worth of my normal salary for it.”

“What were you commissioned to make?”

“A long-lasting and fast-acting sedative that could knock out even the strongest warrior or mage in under five seconds without being lethal under any circumstances, some emergency elixirs using Heartroot to keep a person alive if needed, and some mind-altering concoctions to use for interrogations.”

Interesting.

A few more pointed questions offered little in the way of usable information, and, since time was running out regardless, Vera allowed her old friend to rise from the bench.

“I know it means little, but I want to say I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” Reynold announced as he stood, starting the short journey toward his chambers. “What little mercy you’ve given my family and me is one I don’t deserve to have been granted.”

Even with the stars shining above her, an edge of emotion forced itself onto her tongue.

“This wasn’t done for your sake, Reynold, but for the sake of this country’s future,” Vera snapped, forcing down the anger before it could start to boil over. “Your apology has been heard. Take that as you will.”

“That it was heard is all I could hope for.”

With the uneven gait that had developed in the last few years of the healer’s life, he retreated from the royal garden and towards the room that would be his final resting place. Vera didn’t pity him, but neither could she find herself happy seeing him go.

…

“Do you think I did well, Harper?” Vera asked when she felt the air behind the bench shift by the slightest amount, her resident Illusionist decloaking and letting herself be seen.

“You did very well, my princess,” Harper replied in an even tone. Respectful as ever, eyes barely looking at her while being addressed. “Do you want me to follow the healer and make sure the contract works as intended?”

Always more than happy to perform extra work instead of sitting down to talk with me.

“It would be for the best, yes,” Vera supposed, able to catch a swift nod before the Illusionist turned invisible once again and likely began to follow Reynold toward his chambers. The princess could never be too sure, her own magical senses not allowing her to sense her friend in the slightest while she was cloaked.

Neither could any of the important mages in the city for that matter. A vital part of how information could be gathered without much risk, though Vera was never too happy about making Harper perform such duties. Even with low risk, it had to catch up to them at some point.

Not today, however.

The task for tonight had been successful. Her father, the king beloved by all, was alive, and the people were without the knowledge that some wanted him dead a thousand times over. Hopefully it would be a few weeks before she would have to make sure of that fact again.

For now, though, she could simply look upwards and feel the calm of the stars wash over her.