Eliona's War 3: Lethal Healer

Ch. 20

Severance began to explain what happened. Even though it was earlier this morning, it still felt like it was days ago.

"There was an accident and I ended up spilling hot coffee all over myself. Got burned pretty bad, apparently." He shook his head. It hadn't seemed very severe, not when he'd been injured so much worse, but Tripp and Jake had looked pretty shaken up. "I'm not sure how it happened, at least not the first time, but somehow... I healed myself."

He glanced at Agadhi. The man gazed out at the sky, almost as if lost in thought. But Severance got the sense that he was listening nonetheless.

"I did it twice more after that. The burns disappeared, just like they do here. It shouldn't have been possible, not in my world. There's no such thing as magic or skills. There's no Towers there. Nothing but our own knowledge and time to heal. And a lot of cases, we don't heal all the way. There's scars. Aches that never go away. Weaknesses that we have to learn to live with. That's how it is. Yet, just as if I was here, in Eliona, I Mended my wounds."

Agadhi turned his head finally and regarded Severance calmly. "You Mended, without the Tower and its System to support you? How did you feel afterwards?"

Feel? Severance's stomach tightened. Agadhi knew. The man was far too calm for such a revelation, and his question afterwards proved it.

"Like crap," Severance dropped his eyes to his boots. "The second time knocked me right out. After I ate and rested, I tried again, just to prove that it actually had happened. I'd never felt so... hollow. Like every bit of life had been sucked right out of me."

"Indeed." Agadhi turned so that he faced Severance fully. "That's essentially what happened. When we of Eliona first gained the Gifts of the Towers, there was much joy. People used them freely, unaware that by so doing, they were drawing on the Towers' themselves. And when we continuously used the Towers to build and to change, to advance far beyond our own means, we didn't realize we were taking far more than they could provide."

This was what Olen had told him before. Unsure of where Agadhi was going with this, Severance nodded. "Yeah, the Towers began to take away from the land, right?"

"Yes. But more than that. When we used our Gifts, the Towers no longer provided us the energy required. Our Gifts drew the cost from us. People began to die, growing weak and ill, aging far more quickly than they should have. There is a reason why you see us pass on our Gifts rather than use them ourselves."

Severance stared at Agadhi. There was a growing pressure, an ache, in his chest, and he realized it was because he'd been holding his breath. He let it go, a heavy whoosh, though it did little to lessen the pressure.

Now he knew what had happened to the Free Trader, Ervante. The creep had aged seemingly overnight, but that was because he'd been using his freaky mind control Gift on Outsiders.

"So what you're saying is, if I heal again in my world, I'll probably kill myself."

"Not immediately," came the mild reply. "But if you persist, then yes. You'll start to see the negative effects very quickly."

"Great," Severance muttered. He'd already figured out it was probably not very healthy to heal on Earth, but he'd thought that if he made sure to eat and rest properly, it might have been okay. From what Agadhi had just said, it most definitely was Not Okay. That still didn't answer the other question, though.

"Then, do you want to explain how I even healed in the first place? That shouldn't have been possible, right?"

"I wouldn't have thought it, no." Agadhi's slender brows drew together. "However, considering the facts, I suppose it's not as improbable as one would believe."