Healing From the Battle

After Haalfrin's conversation with Freyya, he wakes up in a cot. Immediately, he notices that besides the dull pain all over his body, he's completely wrapped up in bandages from head to toe.

Evidently, Kaalhyme's elixirs weren't enough to completely heal him, no matter how high grade they were.

Haalfrin looks to his sides and sees that his tent is obviously not his own and that it's well furnished with silver and purple. In Alasta, only the king and queen are allowed to have golden decorations, while the prince and princesses are allowed to have silver. The question is… which prince took him away?

Briefly, Haalfrin imagines Tallus's dumb-looking face and mutters, "Hopefully not him…"

Of course, other than the decorations, Haalfrin also sees that he's completely alone. Due to leveling up his soul and opening another gate, he's become a bit more sensitive to magic, and he notices there are enchantments lining his bed… though Haalfrin himself isn't sure what they're for.

One of the guards outside hears Haalfrin stir, and he shouts, "He's awake!" Moments later, food is brought in by a gigantic-looking lady - not the fat kind of "huge", but the "tall" kind.

In a moment of bleary confusion, Haalfrin croaks out, "A giant!" The woman who came in is about 1.5x taller than himself and he, himself, is over 6 feet tall!

The nurse chuckles and says in an amused tone, "No, silly. You just opened your 2nd gate and your body grew a little younger. That's all."

'So I'm a kid now?' he thinks. Then, Haalfrin looks down and notes aloud, 'I'm covered up all the way… I guess I didn't notice because I can't see myself very well this way.'

When he tries using body reinforcement magic to sit up (he's that weak right now), Haalfrin notices that he has something restricting his magic.

As if reading his mind, the nurse smiles and says, "Patients always have their magic restricted. It makes treatment easier, and we don't want you running around messing up our work. When you run magic through your body, it constantly tries to reject foreign substances, and that includes our medicine. I'm afraid those aren't coming off you until your treatment is completely done."

As the nurse sets down his warm food, she says, "Well, at least you're energetic. It means all our hard work paid off." She then looks down and counts with her fingers as she mutters, "A surgery in all the limbs to set the bones straight, high-level alchemy to grow back the parts of the bones that shattered completely, 34 hours of connecting all the ligaments and muscles back together, 14 hours of healing the nerves and reconnecting the severed ones…"

She then looks over at Haalfrin with a tired look. "Yeah. Prince Kanus spent no expense getting you back to full health. I mean, saving your life would've been easy, but he wanted you to be able to walk and swing your sword again. I don't know how you messed up your body, but you were set to be a cripple for life if the Prince's men hadn't found you."

Once the nurse leaves, Haalfrin looks back up at the ceiling and surmises, 'Kanus probably instructed the nurse to tell me about my treatment; he wants me to feel grateful to him. Being a young and talented mage with a 2nd Gate, he definitely wants to win me over now…'

Haalfrin then relaxes his muscles and sighs in his mind, '… Still, it's clear by now that Prince Kanus did save my life… and more importantly, he saved my limbs. If it weren't for him, I'd be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my boring life and be taken by Das. Ugh… I hate the feeling of being in debt to people.'

Still, being in debt to a king might actually be more troublesome than owing a goddess. A goddess won't be lacking anything a mortal could provide, so it's as simple as owing a favor (in Haalfrin's mind). A king, however, is much more ambitious and calculating with his relationships, right?

Changing the subject in his mind, he recalls the size of his 2nd gate, and he tries his best to remember what he's read so long ago, back when he had access to the Kareen's magic books.

'Hmm…,' Haalfrin wracks his brains, 'the size of the outer circle of the soul gate symbolizes your mana capacity, as well as your new lifespan, and the smallest circle in the middle of the Gate symbolizes your natural lifespan, and your natural strength as a mortal.'

Haalfrin looks up and starts to confuse himself. 'Arg! I don't know math at all! I'm not a scholar! All I know is that the 2nd circle on the Gate was what I had as a 1st Gate mage and that I grew 4 times younger… meaning the 2nd circle was 4x larger than the center circle…'

"…Whatever. Thinking too much will just exhaust me…" He looks down on his tiny body, as well as his battered armor off in a corner. "I'm too small for my armor now… What a pain… Well, whatever. I'm going back to sleep."

Haalfrin rolls over, and he starts snoring within a minute.

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Over the next several days, Haalfrin quickly learns from the doctors that his right hand is too far gone to completely salvage; it was the hand Haalfrin used to catch the sword mage's blade.

Sure, they got his arm stitched back together, but some of the nerves weren't just battered – they were completely severed and twisted beyond repair. What's worse is that he actually drank several healing elixirs, which made the nerves heal wrong.

From then on, Haalfrin wouldn't be able to grip anything too hard with that hand, as 2 of his fingers are uncooperative now and can barely curl without any strength.

Of course, this just makes Haalfrin frustrated anew; that was his sword hand… 'Well, I'll just have to train myself to be left-handed, I guess…'

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About a week after Haalfrin wakes up for the first time, Prince Kanus is in a fancy cathedral with high walls, tapestries, and glass murals of the 10 recognized gods in Alasta.

There's a long red carpet going down the middle of the cathedral, and instead of benches for people to sit on, there's ample space on either side of the carpet with small cushions. Lining the rows and columns of cushions are royally dressed men and women – all in kneeling positions with their hands on their knees and bowing their heads towards the front.

Ever since the Temple of the Divines had received a mysterious blessing from the god of longevity, the temple had been packed full every day for their regularly held worship services.

At the front of the cathedral are a few dozen small shrines, with some being larger than others.

Prince Kanus is at the front on the dais on which the shrines rest, and he's reciting prayers to each of the gods officially recognized in his kingdom.

When the archpriests are on a journey or out of commission for whatever reason, royalty is allowed to take their place and conduct worship services. It's said that the royal families are all close with the gods anyway, so it makes sense to the people at least.

"Bayyor, the spirit of our sun, may you shine not too bright or not too dim."

Everyone kneeling repeat after him, "Beyyor, the spirit of our sun..."

"Hurda, the goddess of our fields, may you show your generosity upon us and the common folk..."

They all repeat again.

In the middle of the ritual, the priest at the front, being the only one standing on the other side of the shrines, and thus, facing towards the back door, sees the back door crack open, and the small image of Prince Tallus slinking into the room.

Tallus tries stepping forward with his mouth open; CLEARLY, he's distressed over something. "Prince, I -"

One of the guards holds his hand in front of Tallus and glares at him. "What do you think you're doing?!" the guard growls in a low voice. "This is an important ceremony."

Another of the guards snickers just low enough that the nobles participating in the worship ritual can't hear him, "It's not like he'd know the etiquette for such things. Someone like him has probably never been asked to participate in the Divine Assembly ritual. Only important people are asked to participate."

Tallus looks over and thinks to himself, 'Move, MOVE! I don't have time!' However, he's far too timid to refute the guards aloud.

The lowly prince perks his ears up when he hears his elder brother's voice again. Kanus says, as he continues the ritual, "...and Das, the god of longevity and peaceful endings, may you grant us long and fulfilling lives... and may you protect us from Freyya, the goddess of war & suffering…"

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Far, far away in another realm, Das's old and tired figure is sitting alone in a large, plain room with a single mirror in front of him. This is a mirror meant to communicate with those praying to him…

However, there are only certain kinds of gods who need the faith of the masses to exist… and the death gods do NOT fall into that category.

A god-king needs faith because a king can't exist without a lot of people agreeing that he's a king. The god of an ideal, like faith or justice, has no power unless people believe in that ideal.

Death, however,… Death is there, whether you believe in it or not.

Hence, Das and his fellow death gods normally don't put any effort into inserting their shrines into the mortal's temples at all, and even if they ARE liked enough to be actively worshipped, you'd only rarely see a death god actually answering prayers.

However, today is an exception. Ever since Das became interested in Haalfrin's business, he had started spending a lot more time in this chamber, paying attention to the prayers that come from the human world – particularly, from the kingdom Das knows Haalfrin lives in. Answering a prayer or two is worth keeping real-life tabs on Haalfrin's land at least.