Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

When Elijah unlocked the door to the room on the second floor, the low groan could easily be heard. And the source wasn’t hard to spot either, the man found the night before lying on the floor face down with their arms by their side. He seemed conscious enough to notice the pain but not enough to do anything about it.

That he’d been able to fumble out of the bed at all was quite the achievement, though one Elijah was forced to forcibly retract for the sake of his health.

Despite his own protesting body, he leaned down and grabbed the left shoulder of the man, pulling it upwards so he was on his back. The semi-lucidity combined with the foreign movement caused him to sputter, legs pulled close to the stomach before stretching out again and again. Elijah used the repeatíng motion to his advantage, pushing the man onto his feet and nudging him onto the bed once the man gave out once again.

“What’s…” he heard in a breathless whisper as he adjusted the wounded man to be laying down properly. “What’s happening?”

“A mix of side effects from the amount of sedatives I’ve pumped into you to stop you from ruining my work, mixed with the effects of rapid healing and the wounds that required you to get that healing,” Elijah calmly explained, forcing down the arms of the man as he tried to stretch them into the air. His eyes were glazed over, barely able to look at one thing at a time. “Since you’re able to even be awake, you should be able to move around somewhat in about three hours. Until then, it would be best if you keep calm and let the effects pass by.”

“... Right.”

The breathing of the man slowed, the small bit of conscious thought washed over by the comforts of sleep. Elijah had no complaints about that, one problem being saved for later.

As for the other… she hadn’t moved an inch from where he had settled them during the night. The deeper cuts were still covered as needed, the bruising on the arms and upper body was starting to fade away, and that labored breathing she’d suffered from was entirely gone as her chest moved up and down in a steady rhythm, no longer compressed by the blood that had gathered inside her lungs.

When he heard the backdoor below opening up, however, he didn’t fail to notice the slight tensing from the woman’s upper body. An unconscious reaction of such severity while this injured? Elijah hadn’t guessed the flesh would be healthy enough for such a thing.

And it likely isn’t.

“Is it serious up there?” Aleksi shouted from the bottom of the stairs, making Elijah leave the room to look down at the giant. The face that met his own had more than a few splotches of black, a byproduct of whatever Aleksi’d been doing in the smithy that day. “Saw you closed the shop. Had me wondering.”

“The man was able to wriggle out of the bed while not possessing any real motor functions,” Elijah explained, pausing as a snort escaped Aleksi in response. “He could somewhat talk as well. Asked what was going on.”

“Was he able to hear your answer?” Aleksi asked, a grin growing on the man as he began to ascend the stairs.

“That remains to be seen,” Elijah replied, turning in the door frame to enter the room once again and let the giant see the two still in their respective beds.

He was meant to, at least, until he saw the glimmer of blonde hair and a slow fist coming towards his face.

An attack. Imprecise and without proper coordination but an attack nonetheless.

Old instinct kicked into the even older man, one leg pushing onto the right side of the doorframe to stop the fist from landing. Unprepared for such an event, the woman nearly tumbled forward, a lazy leg just barely coming in to hold up her weight before going in for a second attack.

Forty years ago, Elijah would have avoided it. Now, with a shoulder that already flared up in pain from just hitting a door frame, he could only try and lean back to lessen the agony that came from the fist reaching his chest.

Even with the two thick layers of fabric, he felt the knuckles hit his upper left side. A grimace worked its way onto his face, the pain more than it should’ve been, but it only got worse as the woman’s legs finally gave in, her body tumbling into his and nearly forcing them both onto the ground.

It would've happened if not for Aleksi ascending the stairs at a rapid pace, putting a hand on Elijah’s back to stop the momentum. A half-finished swear left the woman’s mouth as she fell to the floor alone, an attempt at bracing with her hands failing and letting her head hit the wooden planks. Definitely painful.

Dangerous too, as Elijah could see the line of blood flowing down from her mouth as she looked up at the two old men.

Those eyes of anger said everything they needed to.

“Alright, that’s enough of you,” Aleksi said in a chippy voice as the woman came out with what sounded like a growl, her unwilling body trying to attack once more before being physically held in place by the gentle giant. “You’re hurting yourself more than you're hurting us with this outburst. Please stop moving.”

Instead of using words, an arm wriggled itself out of the gentle giant’s grasp before slamming the accompanying fist into the left side of Aleksi’s face.

And then the gentle giant wasn’t so gentle anymore.

“Go screw your goat, you sadistic-”

“Enough.”

A cry of pain came from the woman in Aleksi’s grasp, pressure applied to the reclaimed arm stopping circulation among other things. More thrashing came in response for a few seconds more, before she finally seemed to calm themselves.

Physically, at least, those eyes filled with wrath not dimming in the slightest.

“Do you think we’ll need restraints here?” Aleksi asked, putting the woman back down on the bed. There was no attempt to get up again, though Elijah didn’t think that would last for long. “Or maybe some of the stuff you put in to calm them down last night?”

“They were only given those to make them stay calm while the worst parts of the healing process finished,” Elijah replied coldly, distaste growing in his mind as he saw the line of blood that started running out of his colleague's nose. “Don’t leak everywhere, please.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” the giant said, just noticing the red liquid after having it pointed out. A few of the one-time napkins normally used when cleaning wounds were taken from the nearby shelf and forced against the guilty nostril. “But my question is then how you’re gonna stop a repeat of this?”

Elijah eyed the woman again, noting that the eyelids had half-closed. There were obvious signs of fighting unconsciousness, but the physical altercation had drained her of the gathered-up energy. With the ability to lie down and rest even the slightest bit, the body had instantly abused the opportunity to shut down.

That gives us a few hours at minimum.

“Words, hopefully,” Elijah finally answered, as the eyelids fully closed and the breathing turned into the slower one it was meant to have been from the start. “Keeping those two sedated indefinitely would only kill them in the long run, and, if they truly want to leave without our help, we have to be prepared to let them do just that.”

“So… if they try to attack you when you’re distracted, you’ll keep yourself safe by using words?”

“I have a knife as well if it comes to that.”

“Works for me,” Aleksi concluded, pulling two chairs from the corner of the room over to the beds. “When do you think they’ll wake up again?”

“With how they’ve behaved, it can’t be more than a few hours,” Elijah answered after some thought.

“So not within the next five minutes,” the giant said, walking over to the door. “I’ll wash up, and then… I suppose it’s observation duty for the both of us for the rest of the day.”

“Seems so.”

It wasn’t the entire remainder of the day that passed by before the mumbling started up. Dinnertime had just barely been able to reach them, making Aleksi bring out various bread and meats he’d bought on the way back from the smithy. Way more than enough for two and just good enough for four.

“Water.”

Barely a whisper, coming from the dry throat of the man on the bed. Elijah was quick to rise from his seat, bringing a durable cup to the wounded as he slowly sat on the bed. Eyes barely glanced his way before the man took the offered source of water, downing it in its entirety in barely a second.

“I’d advise against repeating that if you don’t want to vomit,” Elijah offered, refilling the cup and handing it to the man again. A nod came as confirmation that he’d been heard. It seemed to have been taken to heart as well, seeing as the water was only sipped on before it was handed back to Elijah. “Can you talk?”

…

“Yes?” the man replied, a shaky hand reaching at their throat. When the half-formed scars on their arms were seen moments later he froze, seconds passing before he spoke again. “So… this isn’t a vivid nightmare of mine, right?”

The man sounded unsure, a tremor in his voice. Elijah surmised it to be a side-effect of whatever recent trauma he’d experienced. Not a good sign, though the man's continued ability to talk meant not everything was broken.

“I’m afraid it’s not, young man,” Elijah said, moving the chair closer to the side of the bed. Aleksi didn’t rise from his seat to do the same, however. The giant simply observed. He had no qualms against it. “Could you tell me your name?”

“It’s Jack, uh… Jack Larson,” the man called Jack answered. Elijah nodded at the words, more pieces falling into place. He had been wondering about the darker skin tone. With the clothes, he’d already assumed that they were foreigners from somewhere, but the strange surname certainly pushed that assumption closer to fact. “Could I ask where I am, by the way? Not to be, like, rude or anything, but my memories of last night are kinda blurry.”

His eyes narrowed a little. Not the strangest question to ask after being moved while unconscious, but Elijah had a suspicion he didn’t just mean what part of the city they were in at the moment.

“You’re in Kulvik, the country’s capital city,” Elijah said, confused eyes looking his way. “Do you know what country you’re in?”

“I really should, shouldn’t I?” Jack replied, a nervous chuckle leaving the man. “Shit… One second, I’m in the middle of Montana, and now I’m in whatever this place is called again. That can’t be normal.”

Montana?

Elijah hadn’t heard of the country. Or maybe it was a city? Definitely foreign, and far enough away that he hadn’t caught the slightest mention of it while perusing various texts.

“The American State?”

Elijah wasn't the source of the question, and neither was Aleksi or Jack, the voice instead stemming from the woman two meters away. Eyelids were opened, gray pupils staring at them unshakingly.

She wakes up so carefully.

Neither Elijah nor Aleksi had caught it. A strong sign of it being a requirement in the past to not be noticed so easily.

“Yeah, of course,” Jack said happily, though the half-formed smile dimmed when Elijah only looked at him with confusion. “... Please tell me you know where that is.”

“They don’t,” the woman answered before Elijah could hope to open his mouth.

“How? We’re like the largest country out there.”

“No. Russia beats you.”

“Oh.”

Montana and Russia.

Two country names meant to have great importance to the two people they’d found, yet neither Elijah nor Aleksi had any clue about where either country was supposed to be located.

However, he knew for certain that neither was the largest country in the world. That title was owned by the high elves in the far west.

“So… weird style choices, primarily wooden architecture, whatever shit happened last night, and… yeah, no, this doesn’t make sense,” Jack seemed to conclude, hands over his face. “I just sat down on my couch and then I’m just somewhere else while feeling like I’m going to vomit out my insides. Was it like that for you too?”

“Something close to it,” the woman said without elaborating further.

Instant transportation from one place to another.

From that description alone, it sounded like Teleportation. A type of magic usually performed by Space Mages or people with adjacent affinities.

Elijah had read texts detailing how some of the so-called wielders of space could go from one side of the world to another in just a single step, which could explain how the two could appear so far within the country's borders without knowing what the country itself was called, but, once more, their demeanor and contrasting ideas made Elijah skip ahead to the more extreme answer.

“You’re not from here.”