Divinity Rescue Corps
118- High Five To The Face

By now me administering Healer’s Resistance to townsfolk and refugees was just reflex. Just press Yes, Yes, Yes over and over again. The day was creeping on, and the entire area outside the town was abuzz with activity. We had some folks helping to tend and harvest plants from my magical garden, some folks tending to those who had just received their treatment, another few teams of people giving them interviews with little clipboards Alan had gotten from gods knew where. Those ones were acting as little Sorting Hats.

And the vast majority they sent along to the Bucket Line. Some remained inside the town, because they had a decent Durability, while others needed to remain outside. The Bucket Line continually passed comatose subjects out of town and right to the administration zone where they could be roused out of sleep, comforted, quizzed, sorted, and join the workforce.

You did it! Give yourself a high five, but not on the face.

Could you not for like five minutes?

Someone’s being even more of a wet blanket than usual. It’s cause for celebration!

There is so much to get through. I would prefer it if we could avoid this inane kerfuffle each and every time a window is opened.

Have it your way…

Ahem, where was I? Oh yes… Reaching level 25 is a significant milestone in the journey of each and every adventurer. You have stood tall in the face of sickness and then stooped low over your cauldron to craft many a potion, salve, unguent, elixir and tincture. You have burned the midnight oil in search of the difficult answers, fought off exhaustion to diagnose the problems, and carefully crafted cures over the course of hours and hours. You have discovered that healing is as much an art form as it is a science.

As such, you may evolve your job class from Healer. Though your base class of Healer will still be visible to others, you and you alone will know your real, actual, verifiable, true—

GET. ON. WITH. IT.

Please choose amongst the following class evolutions:

*Reclusive Herbalist

*Apothecary of Nightshade & Toadstool

*Battle Medic

*Cleric of the Divine

*Godsbane

*Arcane Mender

“Um… what?” Unconsciously, I pressed Yes each time someone came to see me regarding Healer’s Resistance. I then cursed each and everyone who had ever thought or uttered the words ‘it’s more fun to find out’ when it came to this kind of thing.

Instead I opened up the first option, Reclusive Herbalist.

As part of your travels, you have learned that people are the worst, and silence is valued higher than gold. The Reclusive Herbalist knows that his patients will seek him out, and not be too chatty when he uses his powerful healing magic on them.

You have reached level 25 in your class, meaning you have traveled far, healed many, and learned the secrets of the healing arts. The Reclusive Herbalist gains advanced healing skill progression, advanced special abilities and bonuses when acting alone.

Note: some class abilities will be overwritten if you select this class.

That sounded… terrible. There was no way I was going to forego being part of an awesome team, which I was. I clicked on the next one, Apothecary of Nightshade & Toadstool.

Plants are not simply made for eating and healing. In fact, many of the plants and animals of every world defend themselves with poisons, venoms, and toxins of many sorts. The Apothecary of Nightshade & Toadstool knows this fact intimately.

You have reached level 25 in your class. You also have advanced knowledge of plants and flowers, both beneficial and harmful. This knowledge allows you to craft poisons with which to lay low your enemies.

The Apothecary of Nightshade & Toadstool gains knowledge of how to brew poisons in addition to typical remedies, treatments and cures. They also gain advanced skill progression and bonuses when healing or poisoning their patients.

Note: some class abilities will be overwritten if you select this class. New skills will be made available.

“Great googly moogily,” I muttered. Just what in the hecky Becky had I stumbled onto here? I clicked Yes a handful more times for Healer’s Resistance, and ignored the bright flash of orange light surrounding more and more people as the ability took hold. Shaking my head once more at the thought of a poisoner class, I proceeded to click on Battle Medic. If this was just as terrible as the first two, maybe I would just stay Healer and be level 25 forever.

The Battle Medic is part of an elite fighting unit that requires some on-the-fly remedies. Poisoned in the heat of battle? Party members turned to stone? The Battle Medic has you covered.

You have reached level 25 in your class. You have been made the leader of a team, and helped others to gain more than 50 total levels. You have been in combat, and have a physical damage resistance of at least 10%.

The Battle Medic gains select combat abilities, select leadership abilities, instantaneous healing abilities, and an advanced skill progression.

Note: some class abilities will be overwritten if you select this class. New skills will be made available.

Now this… this didn’t look terrible. Luckily all three of these new classes listed something called an advanced skill progression. They also seemed to be listing more and more impressive prerequisites that I’d accomplished since beginning my tenure as a Healer. Battle Medic didn’t seem as bad as the first two, given that there were instantaneous remedies like an enhanced Healer’s Breath I could look forward to. That said, I hadn’t raised my hand to anyone in this world and wasn’t about to start. Combat abilities would be wasted on me.

Cleric of the Divine was next on the list.

This world, as you well know, has more than its fair share of gods and divine beings. The Cleric of the Divine knows that this holy energy can be harnessed to far greater feats of healing than using mere herbs and plants. Simply turn your face up and fold your hands in prayer, and healing will come unto those you ask. And woe be unto your enemies, lest you pray for your god to smite them down.

You have reached level 25 in your class. You have healed more than 10 gods. You have prayed to a god.

The Cleric of the Divine gains selects a god from which to derive power and gains divine miracles per day based on level. This includes instantaneous healing abilities, blessings, and other gifts based on your god of choice.

Note: some class abilities and skills will be overwritten if you select this class. New skills will be made available.

This seemed, on its face, like a step down. Sure holy smiting abilities sounded nice, but so many gods were on the fritz in this world… what if that happened with my ‘chosen’ god? It seemed from the write up that my regular herb-based healing abilities would be lost and replaced with holy stuff.

On top of that, no advanced skill progression here, making this an automatic no. 

No, no thank you.

While clicking Yes to grant people my ability (which existed for now and who knew how long thereafter), I looked at the last two options: Godsbane and Arcane Mender.

Yikes to the first.

The gods don’t deserve such power. What they need, instead, is a righteous avatar of their destruction, to seek them out and put them out of their misery for good. No more poisoning the land with their sickened and corrupted touch. You, Godsbane, are an instrument of their annihilation.

You have reached level 25 in your class. You have survived divinity poisoning from at least 3 gods. You have the Divine Resistance skill higher than level 5. You have healed more than 100 creatures that have suffered from divine influence.

Godsbane has powers strictly limited to identifying, nullifying, resisting, and purifying divine influence over this world. You gain xp when tracking, hunting, and destroying the gods.

Note: your class abilities and skills will be overwritten if you select this class. New skills will be made available.

“Nope!” I said, causing several townsfolk to flinch. “Not you. You’re okay. I’ll give you Healer’s Resistance.”

I sighed. So far, the only one that seemed remotely good was Battle Medic… the rest had awful restrictions, and the last one was a hundred percent the opposite what I wanted to do with my life here.

I mean sure, I could understand why someone might want to seize the godslayer blade and run around killing gods until Thor showed up to stop them in a situation that was way too dark to be funny but also far too light in tone. The gods were indeed on the fritz, and they had indeed killed people. Other Healers if you believed what the admin superiors told me. But I didn’t think that killing them was the answer, when I’d already had success healing them.

After taking a deep breath, I clicked on Arcane Mender.

Healing is a science. Magic alters science in select, limited, and impactful ways. Therefore magic can assist healing in select, limited, and impactful ways. Whether this is speeding up the process of knitting flesh, increasing the body’s ability to fight infection, or other ways, magic is one tool a healer has at his disposal to bolster the science of healing.

You have reached level 25 in your class. You have created at least one salve, potion, elixir, unguent and tincture. You have healed Mental, Magical, Spiritual and Physical ailments. You have treated patients of at least 8 different aspects. You have treated humans, Nakamamon, and gods.

The Arcane Mender has a rapidly accelerated skill progression, as well as a boosted mana pool for utilizing arcane magic more fully in pursuit of healing.

Note: some class abilities will be overwritten if you select this class. New skills will be made available.

I breathed out a hefty sigh of relief.

With just the sun on my face and a near limitless progression of people ready to spend Ingenuity Tokens so they could have some time in the town they called home, I basked in the feeling of finally having progressed to my new class evolution.

Arcane Mender Christopher Fletcher. It just rolled off the tongue, if for instance you first vomited all the words into your mouth. And now, without further ado…

I pressed Yes another fifty times to let people join the bucket line. Then I watched as the bucket line passed more and more and more Nakamamon from the town of Glumpdumpkin out of the town limits. It was lovely to see the unconscious lumps lovingly passed from one person to another, having been placed on stretchers Larelle had cobbled together. They floated into our cure distribution area, where the weak ones without much Durability and Ingenuity learned how to distribute the cures to the sleeping, and worked in pairs to make sure the comatose patients didn’t choke on the micro dose of potion… that we were running out of. Some helped the patients to stir, helped get them processed, some of them even helped in my herb garden under Vellenia’s direction.

I couldn’t think about that now. I needed instead to see Cinzy, our Bard comforting the newly awakened and telling them all was well, that we were awakening the whole town for purposes of ending this whole situation once and for all. All they had to do was see Alan over there, the stuttering one with the clipboard and the stylus. Several other Alans now existed, each with their own clipboards and styluses, marking down on soft clay where they were sending people.

From there, they’d list out their Ingenuity and Durability, and either head off to join the line to see me for Healer’s Resistance, or the team leads around us for various and sundry other tasks. Pulling and drying herbs from my garden, joining the out-of-town-limits bucket line, joining the potion distribution teams, and more.

We had already begun ramping up the speed of production, meaning Cinzy was no longer the bottleneck… I was.

I needed to get through the class evolution stuff fast, and start spending my Tokens on the remaining gigantic punch bowls filled with potions we needed to keep this train a-running.

Level 25: You have gained the following:

+20 skill points.

An increase of HP per level.

A large increase of MP per level.

The following are now class skills: Mana Affinity, Meditation, Spellcasting (Abjuration), Spellcasting (Transmutation), Spellcasting (Evocation), Spellcasting (Conjuration), Mana Shaping, Instinctual Casting.

Diagnosis skills have been combined into a single skill renamed Diagnostics. An average of your skill levels has been used.

Treatment skills have been combined into a single skill renamed Treatments. An average of your skill levels has been used.

Verdant Regeneration advances.

Healer’s Resistance advances.

Healer’s Endurance has been replaced by Mender’s Focus.

Healer’s Breath has been replaced by Mending Aura.

Hard at Work has been replaced by Arcane Alchemy.

Arcane Alchemy advances.

Mender’s Focus advances.

Mending Aura advances.

I’d been almost all the way through these, salivating at all the wonders they were going to give me, and how I planned on spending my skill points. No more individual skill points going into salves or tinctures or unguents! No more individual skill points needed for magical diagnostics or physical! I was practically rubbing my hands together, in my mind at least.

But then Hard At Work had disappeared.

“Oh no,” I breathed.

My first and most consistent ally, the sole reason I’d been able to handle such high level challenges, diagnose and then heal up gods when I was just an Apprentice Healer. Doubling my Tokens was insanely powerful, I had realized. I counted on it to be my bedrock in the days to come, when I’d need to handle this God of Productivity. Had taken it for granted, apparently. Now it was gone.

I rushed mentally to where the new ability was written down.

Arcane Alchemy II

(Special Ability, Uncommon, passive)

I- Any time you undertake a class-related check, you may exchange Tokens at a rate of 1:1 from one attribute to another. You may exchange a number of Tokens equal to this ability’s rank (presently rank 2).

II- Up to three times per day, you may instead exchanged Tokens at a rate of 1:2.

I smacked myself mentally for doing this now. I had grown to love the doubling of Tokens from Hard at Work, and the free retry. This was… probably great, when I sat down to think about it. Turning one Token into two was really good…

…and I could do that for 2 Tokens at a time. Meaning I could take 2 Durability Tokens and turn them into 4 Ingenuity Tokens. It said from one attribute to another, so that most likely meant Free Tokens were right out.

That was pretty great, three times a day. I’d need to be careful about how I did this.

I gave my consent another dozen times while spending skill points. Twenty was a lot, making me grin. While I had a metric ton of skills and it didn’t typically feel like enough, a huge grin spread across my face. I had to be careful; I could raise each skill once per level. With that in mind, I would soon need…

“Diagnosis…” I put one into each of those. Another one into Develop Cure (Large), and then I paused. I needed to know more about the new skills, the spellcasting stuff.

First, some of the spellcasting I knew from my days playing assorted roleplaying games and video games. Abjuration was protection magic, principally for resistances, but there were a handful of circles of protection that stopped someone or something from entering that circle. It might be useful to make a divine protection circle when working near the body of our God of Productivity. Not incredibly useful unless there were poison Nakamamon or fire Nakamamon that needed saving. So… possibly useful.

Conjuration was creating something out of nothing. I already had it on good authority that conjuring materials wasn’t as good as having the real thing. Although I needed glycerine and oils as bases for my treatments and cures, they wouldn’t work if they were magically conjured, so Conjuration was going to take a backseat, if I bought it at all.

Evocation harnessed the forces of the planet, so that would allow me to create fireballs and lightning bolts and such. Not initially, but once my level got high enough, the classic explosive fireball was possible. That put Evocation into the not necessary pile, as I could just as easily get some fire going with firewood or a Magmamander.

The last one was Transmutation, or changing one material into another. I knew this could eventually work on living things, but I thought it might work very well for my purposes. Unlike Conjuration, which made a material strictly out of magic, Transmutation took a real thing and made it into a different real thing. I put a point into that one.

Mana Shaping I wasn’t entirely sure on, but once I focused on it, the pop up explained (in two different bickering voices) that it was about pulling mana together and threading it into the necessary shape to cast into spells. Like with my treatments and cures, I’d be staking the Spellcasting skill with Mana Shaping in order to cast. That one got a skill point too.

And last was the new skill Instinctual Casting. The write up on this one was long, and explained essentially that casting spells was incredibly complicated, difficult, and wonky for people who had never done it before or didn’t have training. But, like Trent’s instinctual mastery of stone and his ability to shape it, make it float, soften it up, and so forth, this skill could blunt the limitations of not knowing what I was doing. Each point of Instinctual Casting would be used  on spellcasting checks.

“Hm.” If I had spellcasting, I wouldn’t need to generate treatments and cures in order to use Arcane Alchemy to redistribute my Tokens.

When I put a point into Instinctual Casting, a pop up appeared and I didn’t swat it away this time, like I had with Transmutation and Mana Shaping. I was glad I did, too.

New skills may be purchased up to level 7, as if you were a starting character.

I pressed Yes a whole bunch of times to grant people Healer’s Resistance, which thankfully had remained my class ability.

Okay, with level 7 being the cap for new skills, I immediately put Instinctual Casting at 7, a single level into each of the Spellcasting skills, and then a single level into Mana Shaping and Mana Affinity. Meditation I’d already spent a ridiculous amount of time leveling all on its own. Okay, that was 13 points from new skills, 4 from Diagnosis, and 1 for Large Cure Development. Already only 2 left.

“Hmm,” I mused. Although the first few weeks I’d kept skill points in reserve until I could see where they needed to go, that was clearly not going to work.

Instead, after furiously pressing Yes for what felt like another fifty times, I put one into Administer Cure, and another into Mana Shaping.

This is Christopher getting a huge boost.