Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

Vera walked silently, steps in a constant rhythm as she looked forward with a gentle smile. She felt some irritation on her face as the magic kept her identity hidden. It was a trick that Harper liked to use on herself when going out to get information that required more than just standing around invisible. Very powerful, with endless potential, but the feeling of having a fake layer of skin over her own was very uncomfortable, and Vera had to constantly resist the urge to scratch it.

After a few more minutes, however, she felt the chubby cheeks disappear. The world likewise wavered around her for a second, the street becoming hazy before returning to its normal state. It was a clear sign of Harper joining her once again, the illusionary body double beside her being replaced by the real deal.

“How did it go?” she asked, now able to talk as the bubble around them stopped them from being seen and heard by others. Yet again, it was very useful, since it also allowed Vera to walk around without fear of yesterday’s actions being repeated.

“They are very careful and very perceptive,” Harper said, giving her initial observations of the two older men. They’d both been surprised by how little information they had been able to dig up around the two, yet it was starting to make sense when she and Harper visited them in person. They were very private people. “Elijah initially complained about Aleksi pressuring him into helping with the Dungeon Break, as you being saved by them complicated their lives massively. Their words implied they’d done something akin to it not long ago.”

“Did they say more regarding that?” Vera asked, curious about what else they could’ve done. There were several entries in their files about acts of good, selling medicine to long-term customers at lower prices when there was trouble with money, but other than that it was hard to say. The only other part in their very short entries was the history of using plants in the gray zone of legality to brew Bliss that was sold to homeless addicts in the slums. “Anything that we can look into?”

“They started speaking in code the second I entered the kitchen, so I assume they had more traps to detect intruders hidden around the house than simply those put onto the windows,” Harper reported. Even with the relatively monotone voice, Vera still noticed the slight inklings of frustration. The anger of a professional failing in their realm of expertise. “Quickly after, however, there was mention of a woman called Sasha.”

“Sasha,” Vera repeated, running the name through her memory and finding no mentions. It was a very rare name, so she was sure she would’ve remembered reading it somewhere. “Make the others recheck for any documents containing the name.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” Harper said. The added title made her wonder just how close she needed to be before the Illusionist would become more casual with her. Maybe she should’ve overplayed the pain she’d felt this morning. “The last discovery was when Aleksi announced his leave to the smithy, speaking in code to Elijah again before then going upstairs. I made the mistake of keeping an eye on the herbalist at the time when he went back into the kitchen to read through the contract you had given him, as Aleksi returned to the ground floor again a minute later while being accompanied by another man.”

Oh?

“Somebody their age?” she asked.

“No, they seemed to be in their mid-twenties at the oldest,” Harper corrected. “I followed them out of the house, and they seemed to be moving towards the smithy together. I can have one of the others visit the smith in an hour to check if they’re still there then.”

“Don’t. They might catch on more than they already have,” Vera ordered Harper accepting her words with a nod. “How did the younger man look?”

“Bronze skin, brown curly hair, gray eyes, less muscle than the average laborer, but with black stains on their palms that looked to have settled in,” Harper rattled off, pausing to breathe. “Most importantly, however, was that they were a Mage. I am still unsure of the exact Affinity, as I haven’t seen one with a shining, silvery coloring before, but I will check the records to be more precise in the report.”

A rare Affinity on top of everything else that’s been revealed about those two.

“Did you have the time to look through other parts of the house?” she asked, to which the Illusionist shook her head.

“All doors except the one into the kitchen were closed, and I didn’t want to risk setting off more possible traps and being discovered,” Harper replied. “I apologize for not finding more, Your Highness.”

“Don’t worry, Harper. You did everything you could,” Vera assured her friend, looking over to see the necklace she’d given her this morning being barely visible. The star gem was hidden under her shirt, but the fine silver chain could be seen glittering slightly as the sun shined on them from above. It was beautiful on her, though it could hardly improve what was already perfect.

With nothing else to report, she did need a moment to consider her future options. The meeting with the old Biomancer had gone well, all things considered. How they had been able to be awakened for so many years without being discovered at random was a strange thing, since it involved several other Mages Elijah interacted with keeping it a secret with high levels of success. Mostly staying inside his own shop would allow for some level of secrecy, but, still, Vera had to respect the skills required for the achievement.

It also explained the level of caution she was shown. Truth be told, she had expected a slightly more… positive reaction to her name, when she had revealed her true identity to him. No outright worship or anything, of course, but maybe something more than getting a door almost slammed into her face.

That was the first time anybody had tried doing that to her, ignoring Louis and Phillip back when they were kids.

Harper had stopped it, as expected, but Vera could easily admit she had been a little desperate to talk with the man. She hadn’t spent the better part of the late night and morning having another write out the contract in fine script with the changes that reflected what they’d learned during the research, get it copied so she could bring it along for their reading pleasure, and then planning how to deal with the two if things turned confrontational.

A certain Illusionist had not been happy about the events that had unfolded the day before, and how close her ‘superior’ had been to an early demise. Vera personally thought that the tears ready to fall down Harper’s face had been for somebody who meant more to her than just being a superior, but she hadn’t pointed it out. Instead, she had accepted the items that could keep her protected, ones that only needed a press instead of an entire incantation.

Did it allow for the chance of misfiring when stretching or bending her limbs weirdly? Yes, but it was a risk that was worth it when she needed to be quick on the magical trigger.

Not that any weapon other than her mind turned out to be needed, in the end. Which was preferable, honestly. Elijah Caede was a strange man, but they seemed to have good intentions, and they weren’t swayed by coin and charm.

Vera almost laughed thinking back on that first exchange. The audacity shown off. She’d thought the old man would throw back the gold coins given at the table as well, but she was allowed to save some face when he and Aleksi accepted them.

If he stays more than six months, I’m sure we’ll become good friends. Not every day I find somebody willing to slap first and not back down.

“Is something wrong, Your Highness?” Harper asked as Vera vibrated a little more than intended. She calmed herself a second later, assuring the Illusionist that all was well and good. “If you are not well, I can contact your older brother’s aides and we can have your informal meeting delayed.”

“There’s no need,” she said again, but Harper didn’t seem satisfied. It only took one concussion and a few stab wounds in the stomach, and suddenly she was but a fragile little bug in the Illusionist’s eyes. “If I feel ill, I will excuse myself and rest in my room. Don’t worry about that. I fully intend to be at my best this afternoon.”

It was obvious that her words didn’t convince them, but they moved along regardless. Without triggering any alarms of any sort, they walked through the castle gates, through the grand hall, up the stairs to the left, and then down the hallway until Vera’s section of the castle was reached. From there, Harper was able to uncloak them inside her room, as if she hadn’t left it to begin with, and the two were able to find her an outfit that looked rough enough as if she had lounged with it on during the morning hours.

“Do you think he’ll want to see the scars?” Vera asked as Harper helped her inspect the area. When poking at the places she’d been impaled, she still felt a flare of pain, but the supplies that the healing assistants had used had worked well. If only they had the ability to make more…

“Your brother is very proper in what he asks of you,” Harper replied, noting how much the redness had reduced in signs. So analytical. “While he also wanted to make sure you were alright while the assistants worked on your wounds, he never entered himself and instead used one of his aides to assure him.”

Vera remembered that random visit while lying on a cold table. Suddenly seeing a redhead staring over her, talking with the assistants while Harper was staring the other woman down was a very strange memory that she would likely cherish forever..

“I guess the loosely fitted clothing apparel would work then,” Vera decided, the two going through the options before picking out a turquoise dress. It was slightly ruffled, the fabric design from two years ago, and just casual enough to work for somebody meant to be taking it easy. “Could you pick out a necklace that could fit this, please?”

“Do you not want to pick it yourself, Your Highness?”

“I’ll put my fate in your hands this time,” she replied off-hand, as she went through the minor adjustments to make sure the dress sat on her properly. It was incredible how much they could pay the designers, how every part of her could be measured with extreme accuracy, and then the final product could still have one part or another that sat a little uncomfortably on her.

Turning around, she found Harper holding a necklace with coral-blue coloring in its chain. There were no gems on it, nothing that truly sparkled, yet it was still a bold mix.

“Good choice,” she complimented with a smile, the Illusionist nodding before having her turn around so Vera could receive help putting it on. “How do I look?”

“Perfect as always, Your Highness,” Harper said, her words coming from the usual line of compliments she’d give out. “I believe we’re running low on time, so we best hurry.”

Agh.

They’d spent too much time in her room figuring out her appearance, forcing a faster pace through the halls. She understood that the morning sunlight might have reached some of the balconies on the other side of the castle beautifully, but that didn’t help when she had to get there at the agreed bell.

Taking a moment to compose herself, Harper opened the door to the large balcony for her, following her out. There were enough seats around for twenty people, and another twenty could easily fit comfortably if they really needed to, but there was only one person currently seated out in the open. Right in the middle, with a large outdoor umbrella to stop the sun from shining directly onto them, was Phillip. An attendant was behind him, handing him documents to sign and look through while answering any questions he might’ve had.

Not that any were voiced, as it was all filed away when Vera approached.

“I see my favorite sister has finally left her room,” Phillip commented, rising from his seat to hug her. Not as tightly as he usually did, having gained the same opinions about the fragility as Harper. “How are you feeling? Is the world still rotating while you’re sitting?”

“It didn’t do that, to begin with, and you know it,” Vera retorted, her brother laughing as they got seated. Both the red-haired attendant and Harper both left to bring tea and refreshments, leaving them alone for a moment. “But the pain isn’t too bad. Couldn’t feel anything at all this morning, until Harper and I had to note down the red area. Accidentally poked it, and… yeah. Not too fun.”

“I can imagine,” Phillip said, a shudder going through the man as his own experiences with being impaled came back to him. Vera remembered how much she’d worried when he had messed up in the Dungeon while training. A wrong move at the wrong time had allowed some beast to bite his left leg, fangs going right through to the other side. Even with the training to deal with such pain, and the magical reinforcement that her brother specialized in, it hadn’t been a fun experience for anybody. “Just remember to take plenty of breaks and don’t overextend yourself. Even just a few steps too many can make your recovery last two months instead of two weeks.”

Yet again, her brother was speaking from experience. While he was likely the one who had inherited the smallest amount of their mother’s personality, that stubbornness had shone through in Phillip’s youth. It was a good thing that he had mellowed out, contrary to what she and Louis had done.

“I do have some good news if that can brighten the mood a little,” Vera offered, briefly pausing when Harper and the redhead returned with tea and cake. Neither of the two touched the latter, but the drink was dearly needed.

She still felt a little sour about getting offered nothing by Elijah, as she’d heard nothing but compliments about the leaves he’d used to brew.

“My aides did tell me that you had good news that was important enough to push back the war meeting by an hour,” Phillip said, Vera offering no verbal commentary on the title. ‘War meeting.’ They weren’t declaring war on another country, but her brother was acting like it as he planned out how to purge the Dungeon of another beast that had the slightest chance of causing another surge of monsters to flow out. He hadn’t taken it well. “Did you figure out what we could use to make our brother understand his place in the world, or is it something less important?”

“Slightly less, I’ll admit,” Vera confessed, a few chuckles leaving them both. “You remember I mentioned the old man who helped keep my condition stable before the Royal Mages could arrive to bring me to the castle?”

“Yes, you did mumble about something like that yesterday,” her brother replied. “I take it you figured out who I should send the pile of gold to?”

“Yes, but the fact that he refused more than 50 gold coins, the legal minimum for saving a Royal, I don’t think he’d appreciate it,” she explained, making Phillip lean back in surprise, one eyebrow raised at the words. “The old man, who I figured out is called Elijah Caede, is a Herbalist living at the edge of the middle district. Over fifty years of experience in the field of herbal medicine and its adjacent field in alchemy. The quality of his products are massively undervalued, my people have tested them to be better than most of what you can get in the upper district, and… he wasn’t entirely unreceptive to my offer of possible employment at the castle.”

“Don’t tell me you went there, after what happened yesterday,” Phillip said, ignoring everything groundbreaking in her recounting in favor of worrying about her safety. “You were supposed to rest with minimal movement.”

“And I did, don’t worry,” Vera assured him, lying as easily as she breathed. “I sent people to thank him, bring him a copy of the contract he would need to sign if he accepted my offer, and the invitation to come here in the afternoon and talk about the position in more detail.”

That seemed to destress her brother just a little once again. While she did appreciate the concern, and truly didn’t want anything else, there were times when some people needed to trust her methods. Already, they had given perfect results.

“This man, Elijah Caede, is a little hard to trust when you’ve only had one single interaction with him,” Phillip countered after some seconds of contemplation. “He might have experience, he might have a lot of high-quality products that match up to upper-class herbalists in terms of the crafting process, but are you sure he has experience with the castle’s medicine that needs a steady supply made internally? I can’t fathom that he has had to make anything too expensive during the time he’s run his shop so close to the slums.”

Fair points that were hard to say anything against. Or, well, that is if years of experience, a lack of greed, and a good heart were everything this Elijah Caede had to offer.

“Do you remember complaining about the Head Dungeon Guard last month, about how they were dragging their feet reporting who they were using as an external supplier for their medical supplies?” Vera asked her brother. While they didn’t often look at the accounting of the different departments personally, Phillip had grown into a habit of being notified of suspicious allocations to different budgetary concerns.

This usually meant looking into areas where a strangely high amount of gold was being spent on something meant to cost much less, hinting at some variant of fraud. Not too rare, but those were easy to deal with.

It was when the costs for something cost an eighth of the usual price that brows began to come together. That had come to her brother's attention in recent times when the pressure on the Dungeon Guard’s budget didn’t line up with the other departments, and they noticed the discrepancy in medical supplies. While costing them so little every week, they were of higher quality than what any other guard was given. Even the Royal Guards were forced to use inferior products when harmed during excursions or training, a fact that had caused much jealousy from her older brother.

And especially when the Head of the Dungeon Guard kept ‘forgetting’ to include the details of their supplier in the monthly reports, just saying there were no issues to be found. Vera had personally imagined there to be some trickery, the low costs being used as a distraction for a larger discrepancy, but now she knew the truth.

“Oh, don’t tell me he’s been the source of my headaches,” Phillip complained, making her laugh. “If he’s been helping the Dungeon Guards for the entire duration where costs have been low, that would mean… around 20 years of being an official supplier of high-quality goods. Very high-quality goods even.”

“One old man with a distaste for having too much gold on him,” Vera said, laughing again as her brother just shook his head. “Don’t take it too hard. It only started making sense when I learnt that he was a Biomancer. Not a strong one, but with a very good understanding of the basics.”

“A master in the basics, if the praise of his work is to be believed,” her brother corrected, elbows on the table as hands covered his face. A few seconds were needed to think, which Vera didn’t blame him for. “A viable candidate for the position that’s been under our noses for so many years. This city really can hide so much.”

Like you wouldn’t believe.

“So you have nothing against me interviewing him for the position this afternoon?” she asked, just to be sure that she had him hooked to the idea.

“I almost want to cancel the War Meeting to be there myself,” Philip confessed, sighing as he glanced at his aide. The redhead subtly shook her head. “Sadly, it’s not something I can avoid if we want to have cleared the top half of anything that’s a threat.”

“A shame,” Vera said, getting a snort out of him as he sipped his tea. The fact that Alin would be there with her settled his nerves a little. “You can meet him tomorrow afternoon then if he decides to accept the position. He did seem a little reluctant, from what I’ve been told.”

“Didn’t you say he was considering it?”

“Yes, but that was after changing the offer so it would be a temporary affair,” she corrected, making an eyebrow be raised again. “While we can’t exactly find a perfect fit within a week, which we need to keep things running, half a year should be manageable to work with. And since he was apparently not keen on a permanent position, six months seemed like a good alternative.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Philip agreed. He scratched the beginnings of a beard he was working on, a third attempt after the last two had ended with embarrassing results. Maybe this year he would be able to match their father’s glory in that aspect. “Even if he does reject the offer, however, I’ll take a moment out of my day and summon him to the castle. If he doesn’t want to leave his shop, I wouldn’t mind throwing in an offer for him to supply the Royal Guards as well.”

Always thinking about those men of his, wasn’t he? On any other day, Vera would’ve teased him for it, but today it helped her immensely.

Now, we just need the other side to play as expected.