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Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage

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That method of dealing with Tattletale was, for his circumstances, pretty ideal. In a different more hostile situation it wouldn't work and it also wouldn't work in any of the bigger events where a bunch of people are gathered under a truce, but there and then it was good.
 
Man I desperately want a PHO or Interlude chapter(though frankly I always want to see those types of chapters), to see how others see our lovable protagonist, or just how people are dealing with a cape that doesn't want to comit violence on the regular... Also, given how much stuff has happened so quickly, I suspect his charges are gonna be primarily through Quests, if they're even slightly common. He's definitely got Protagonist luck. Though I do wonder if Quests are 'Story' aligned or 'actions noteworthy/impactful to take', like, would a general 'Prevent a Trigger' Quest be a thing, for example?
A magic-based Inspired is an interesting idea, and I'm curious what's gonna be his primary limiting factor. For most Inspired Inventors, it's a constant 'tools to build the tools' and 'how the fuck do you source Warp Steel somewhere were the Warp doesn't exist?', but mages tend to be much less directly reliant on their surroundings, and more on their internals. Will his magic pool be what ends up determining his limits? he said he could train it, but is that of the 'a 10% increase every decade if you train 16 hours a day' or 'if you eat this magical orb, nearly die, and by doing both experience super-magic-enlightenment, you'll go from normie to god'? I'm also curious how he sources his Magic. Is it from a single-setting, if generic, or can he use OOC magic to bust open a magic tree that expects problems/bottlenecks that you can trivially solve in a different system? He specifies it's all coming from the same pool, but could that be Benifactor(for lack of a better term) Fiat to solve the issue of dealing with a dozen different variations of 'mana' that are almost, but not quite, identical? Or is it an indicator of a single, broad system? And how broad, exactly? is metamagic a thing? Space or Temporal? Mind and Prophetic is it's own type of fucky and useful, but in Worm that's probably a bad idea. How Wet and/or Necromatic does it get? 'Restoring to an ideal form' and 'creating your own ideal form' are not nearly as far apart as most would like to belive (ask Panpan).
 
Pretty good chapter. When I first started I was worried that the whole chapter would be him healing at another camp with nothing actually significant happening. So while I still think you spent a bit too much time on it, the healing at the camp wasn't too long. The meeting with the Undersiders seemed good. I agree that just refusing to talk while the thinker was around was a good tactic at this point. As far as why the Undersiders wanted to talk to him, I would say they could have had multiple reasons. Get a read on a new cape. See if he's willing to heal them. Scout him out under orders from Coil. No reason it couldn't be any or all of those reasons.
 
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Chapter Fifteen New
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    • After spending a minute waiting for Alya to confirm that my uninvited stalkers were entirely gone, her presence pulled back to me.

    "They are leaving," She confirmed, her voice even quieter than usual. "Are you satisfied with their reasoning for following you?"

    "Vaguely?" I said, not sounding entirely sure. "Reaching out to the new healer on the block, offering cash for his power… it makes sense, especially to a group who wouldn't have access to Panacea or Othala."

    "But not completely?"

    "I mean, from what PHO says, you should never assume certainty when a thinker is involved," I responded with a frown. "I just hope she didn't get to pull too much information from me before she left."

    "She was cursing and muttering as she made her 'retreat,'" The air elemental offered. "Her frustration seems to point towards no."

    "Huh…well, I'll take it as a good sign," I responded. "But I also need to keep it in mind in case she did."

    With my visit to the second homeless camp complete, I still had quite a few more hours in the day. Having left my number with Charles, I regretted not doing the same with John. So I spent the rest of the day in a vague patrol, slowly making my way towards the smaller community. I ended up stopping a mugging on the way, zapping a ski mask-wearing idiot who was threatening an older man with a knife.

    When the police arrived, I gave my statement before continuing on, eventually stepping into the moderately hidden community. The place looked different during the day, even if at this point the sun was starting to get lower. The warm light of the fire had given it a campy, homey feel, which was gone in the light of day. This was a place where people with nothing went, where every day was a question.

    I handed John my number, as the man also had an emergency prepaid line, just in case. While I was there, I healed a younger man who popped out his shoulder while doing manual labor. It had already popped back in, but a quick spell reduced the swelling and healed the joint completely.

    I spent a few minutes talking to everyone and even helped put up a new tent by driving several pipes into the ground by hand. Once I was done at the camp, I repeated my earlier meandering patrol, this time focused on getting home. My only stop was in a seemingly random alley, where I had stashed my civilian clothes. I was just pulling on my sneakers when Tony called.

    "Arcanum! Is everything okay?" He asked in a rush. "Your friend explained what was happening, but I didn't want to call back too quickly, just in case you were... busy."

    "Yeah, Tony, everything is fine," I assured him. "It was the Undersiders, sniffing around, trying to size me up. They wanted to know if I would put a price on my healing, sign a sort of contract to heal them."

    "Oh, hell. How did that go?"

    "As well as it could have," I admitted. "They approached me civilly, so I let them leave the same. Not happy to have to deal with a thinker, but it is what it is."

    "So, they just… popped in to chat and left?" He asked, disbelief clear even through the phone. "Why?"

    "From what I've read, the Undersiders usually don't engage in combat. Their MO is blitz and run," I explained. "I told their thinker to fuck off and acted confident. That either threw them off or they are even less aggressive than PHO thinks. Either way, it's done, not much we can do about it now."

    "Yeah… I'm glad it turned out alright," He said. "What would you have done if…?"

    "I would have smacked them hard and ran while they recovered," I explained with a shrug. "The only one of them who could keep up with me is Hellhound, but only if she had transformed her dogs and rode on their back. The space we were in was too tight for that, so I was pretty safe."

    Tony and I chatted for a bit longer, mostly talking about our next healing trip. I brought up my trip to the smaller community before he promised to start looking for more contacts in some of the other communities around the town. After that, we finally said goodbye and hung up. I was glad he was doing well, even if Alya had already confirmed he had escaped unharmed. I was also glad that the Undersisders weren't the kind of villain group to find out who I was traveling with. If they even knew I was.

    I finished changing into civilian clothes as the sun dipped behind distant buildings. With nothing else to do in the day, Alya was guiding me to a sandwich shop a few blocks over for dinner. I got back to the shop about thirty minutes later with a meatball sub and a bag of fries. I sat down on the couch and ate, surprised by the quality of the food.

    "Okay, so, we made contact with another community, healed a lot of people, chatted with some teenage villains, who were actually more polite than most of the heroes we met," I listed out. "Got my number to the smaller community, stopped a mugging, and found a nice sub shop that's pretty good. Not bad for one day."

    "You listed the sub shop with everything else?"

    "Good morale is important," I said with a grin, leaning back on the couch. "Don't underestimate the impact of a good meal."

    The rest of the night went by pretty quickly, with Alya and I discussing some plans for the following day. I decided that the first thing I was going to do was finally spend some time working out how my geomantic absorptions played with my newest additions, the physical movement spells. I had almost tumbled off the roof when I tried the jump aid spell, and now I wanted to know if there was some way I could leverage my increased strength with my running.

    I knew from experience that my enhanced strength did help with general movement and the like. Moving around was understandably easier when I could bench press half a ton or more. That said, I didn't quite notice that enhanced strength directly translated into better running speed. Was it because magic differentiated speed and strength so differently? Buffing my speed with geomancy required mercury, so was the steel absorption restricted from giving me speed?

    I discussed it with Alya as I prepared for the day, eventually making it out of the shop and into the early morning streets of Brockton Bay. We concluded that, as far as we could tell, this was not some sort of gamified, balanced magic system that I was tapping into. Limitations existed, but they weren't arbitrarily created to balance out mechanics. If a spell, ritual, or anything else caused tangential benefits, I would be able to count on those, not have them repressed in the name of fair gameplay.

    So, if the magic wasn't the source of the issue, that meant that I was most likely the source instead. Which was a good thing, because that meant I could change or adapt in a way to fix it.

    Alya looked around us as I walked, eventually settling on a stretch of mostly empty alleyways. They were all connected together in a long line, an adequate place to test my speed issues. I had to make one pass-through to clear the alley out, pushing a dumpster to the side and cleaning up a few bags of trash. Once I did that, however, I had a straight shot to practice my running. Even better, it was slightly out of the way, which hopefully would keep people away.

    "Okay… So let's start by doing this normally," I mumbled, mostly to myself as Alya was dispersed, keeping an eye on the area around me.

    I jogged down the alley, then sprinted, trying to get a sense of how I was moving and pushing off the ground. While moving was still a drain on my stamina, I could feel that my muscles were not actually struggling with the weight. The cardio is draining, but not the aspect of carrying myself. I could only imagine that the sensation had hidden behind the normal stamina drain of running around, but now that I had identified it, it was much harder to ignore.

    I slowly made my way back along the alley, wanting to have as much space as possible to run. When I was there, I quickly cast the marathon spell.

    "Marathona potestas cursus!" I intoned, the blue energy bands encircling my hands as I started to move at a jog.

    I spent twenty minutes running back and forth, getting to know the marathon spell just a bit better. While I did know plenty about it already from the initial information download, it was still only one charge, meaning there were a lot of gaps and missing information.

    When I was confident I had a good feel for the spell and what it did, which was different from understanding the magic itself, I started trying to figure out how to apply my increased strength to my speed. I started by simply trying to push myself to go faster. That did garner some results, but it threw off the equilibrium of the marathon spell. Basically, I could hit around twenty-five miles an hour, but it was very tiring, especially because it drained my mana in only a few seconds. It was interesting and potentially very useful should I need a burst of speed at the end of a run. Unfortunately, it required me to drain my mana quickly to keep up. I couldn't even make it all the way across the impromptu alleyway track.

    I messed around for a little while longer, switching between running with and without the marathon spell and also trying various different gaits and runs. Eventually, I settled on sort of a vaulting, loping run, pushing off extra hard with each foot. After a bit of experimenting, I managed to get it to where it was just enough of a run to count for the marathon spell. It also looked a lot better than else I had tried, especially the Gallup. Thank god Alya could confirm I wasn't being watched, because I made a real idiot of myself galloping and skipping around.

    When I settled on a proper form, I ran up and down the alleyway, marathon spell engaged, letting Alya count out the seconds. When I was done, I repeated the process, but this time while doing my new vaulting "run." The result was a significant time reduction, which meant I was absolutely going faster with the vault.

    "Well… I'm kind of spitballing it, but I figure that was about twenty, maybe twenty-five percent faster," I said, sitting down on a barrel at the end of the alleyway. "If I want better numbers, I'd have to do this at a track with a stopwatch, but until then, I think I was hitting a solid twenty miles per hour. Makes me want to shake hands with Usain Bolt. The fact that he could beat me in a race even with my magic is crazy."

    I spent a few minutes sipping from a water bottle, recovering from my experiments, before finally deciding it was time to go out on patrol. I still felt a bit silly just running around the city, looking for crime, but it was a part of being a hero. The more I got out there, the more people would trust me, which, in turn, would make it easier to help people.

    So, at about eleven thirty in the morning, I stepped out of the alley and onto the populated street. As always, I got plenty of stares, pointing, and camera flashes as I started to run, vaulting through between the sidewalk and the road.

    I did immediately learn, through a series of stumbles that I thankfully recovered from before falling on my face, that vault running was not quite so easy when not in a straight line. When running, turning is just a series of small adjustments, at least as long as you're doing it right. With vault running, the points of contact with the ground, which was where you made your adjustments, were few and far between. That meant, if you weren't paying attention, it was very possible for you to be in the middle of a vault, need to turn, and be absolutely incapable of doing so.

    Really, the only solution to this was to pay attention, meaning that as long as I wanted to go full tilt, I couldn't just casually run through the streets. I would need to keep my eyes peeled and my head in the game. Luckily, I did not learn this by crashing into anyone, though there was a street lamp with a series of suspiciously finger-like imprints, where I was forced to reach out and yank myself to a stop before I collided with someone.

    That wouldn't have looked good.

    While on patrol, I vaguely and slowly make my way across the city, heading towards a tech store I knew of, the one I bought the lights and battery bank I used for the shop. I was fully aware of the scene I was making just walking inside while still wearing my full costume, but I wasn't about to try and buy a police scanner in my civilian identity. If the PRT had any intelligence at all, that would activate all sorts of alarm bells.

    It took me a few minutes to get in and out of the store, mostly because a couple of kids, who had been playing a demo stand for some video game console, spotted me before I could sneak out. When I finally left, just a little bit poorer, Alya found me a space I could be alone in, an empty roof not too far away. Once there, I spent about fifteen minutes reading the scanner's manual so that I knew how to use my new toy.\

    After a bit of troubleshooting and a pair of AA batteries, I was the proud owner of a scanner capable of listening to police and fire broadcasts, meaning I could now show up at larger emergencies like fires.

    With that set, I went back to my regular patrol, now with a police scanner tucked into one of my jacket pockets. It was hooked up to a pair of earphones, only one of which was tucked into my ear. The scanner was turned down pretty low as well, low enough that I could ignore it easily but loud enough that if the people talking on it started getting excited, I would be able to tell.

    I vaulted through the streets, making my way through the city. I made sure to mostly stick to the streets, keeping off the sidewalks and away from squishy people.
     
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    • Great chapter! Thanks for posting. Very excited to see where this story goes.

    EDIT:

    Do we have a documentation for his powers/an idea of what/how his abilities can be improved objectively. Love the low level exploration tho
     
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    MetaBettaOmega said:
    I knew how to use my new toy.\
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    That might be a typo adding an unwelcome "\" there.

    MetaBettaOmega said:
    After a bit of troubleshooting and a pair of AA batteries, I was the proud owner of a scanner capable of listening to police and fire broadcasts, meaning I could now show up at larger emergencies like fires.
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    Can Arcanum detect living people with his healing magic? Showing up to a fire and going "there are three people on the fourth floor" might be helpful, especially if he's able to rescue them (or direct someone else in doing so). Also, I imagine there's a bit of utility in putting together illusions of the 'look at what I can do' variety instead of the sneaky sort; being able to summon a model of the building on fire with glowing dots showing where the people are helps save time (and you can entertain kids later by playing 'light tennis' with yourself, which is the real victory here)
     
    just found this and caught up. Really cool twist on the Inspired Inventor concept. Honestly if it was me I would have focused on transmutation magic and permanent enhancement rituals. Transmutation to source the materials for the rituals. Then wait a couple months of charges and boom immortal magician.
     
    Chapter Sixteen New
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    • Hey everyone, just a reminder that I have a Patreon! Being a supporter has a lot of benefits, like early chapters and access to my original content. You could get up to eight chapters early from this story and either four or eight from my other two. Board Members even get to vote on story beats, interludes, names, and the bonus unlock during Arcanum's recharge cycle! (The first vote was for Geomancy!)

    If you are interested in those benefits or just want to support my attempt to become a full-time writer, stop by and show your support. Every dollar helps!


    With my testing done and a new increase in my response time and overall travel speed, it was time to move on to my second objective for the day. Getting my phone number into the hands of whoever was in charge at the local hospitals.

    Despite my rather unfortunate experience with Panacea and whatever drama had resulted from that, including what Glory Girl was dealing with, I had been telling the truth when I met them. I absolutely wanted to help the hospitals during emergencies and with cases that Panacea couldn't handle. According to what I could learn online, Panacea couldn't heal anything to do with the brain. That was a rather large hole in her abilities, one that confused me greatly. It was an odd place for a healing power to suddenly stop, but from what else I had learned, having weird limitations on some of the more powerful abilities wasn't uncommon.

    Still weird, in my humble opinion, but definitely not uncommon. There was a name for it, apparently, but I couldn't remember what it was.

    I ran across the city, heading towards my target, focused on getting another item off my list. I made good time, only stopping once to scare off a bunch of kids with spray cans from putting graffiti on the back of a laundry mat. When I got close to the Brockton Bay Central Hospital, I sat down at a nearby bench and pulled out my phone.

    It took a few minutes to negotiate, but eventually, I got an appointment of sorts. A doctor had agreed to meet me and allow me to prove who I was. If that went well, they would introduce me to one of the Medical Directors. I was honestly surprised it was that easy, but apparently, I had underestimated the waves I was making. News of my trip to the PRT had spread, as had my help among the homeless. Also, Dr. Pilota, the doctor whom I had met with alongside Panacea and Glory Girl, spoke well of my politeness, even in the face of what they were kindly calling a stressful day for the wonder healer.

    Once everything was set, I made my way to the hospital itself, this time making use of a secondary entrance usually reserved for staff. A doctor let me in before taking me to an office nearby and shutting the door. We talked for a while, and I demonstrated that I was, in fact, a parahuman, though I explained that my healing ability would only work on an injury. He also confirmed, through the number I was given by Miss Militia, that the people I had healed as part of the accreditation process were still undergoing observation, but no abnormalities had occurred as of yet.

    I was then passed off to a Medical Director, an older man with gray hair, a full mustache, and thick glasses. His office was considerably nicer than the previous doctor's, a perk of success, I assumed.

    "Arcanum? It's good to meet you," He said, holding out his hand, which I shook before taking a seat in front of his desk. "I wanted to thank you for coming in despite the… Issues with your last visit."

    "I'm not concerned about it, Sir," I explained with a shrug. "Whatever the situation is, I want to help where I can."

    "And we appreciate that," He said with a nod, focusing on me for a long moment. "What exactly are you looking to accomplish?"

    "Well, I understand that Panacea cannot repair brains?" I asked, the man nodding slowly in response. "That isn't a limitation for me. So, in cases where she cannot help, I'm more than happy to come in when necessary. Especially for life-threatening issues. I'm also available for large emergencies."

    I spent about ten minutes describing exactly what I am capable of fixing and how some of my healing spells work. The Director seemed surprised by some of the details I was able to give. He even ended up taking a few notes on my limitations and abilities. He also called the PRT number. He had a much more in-depth discussion with the head of their medical department. I assumed they knew each other because he called him by his first name. Eventually, we started discussing exactly what I wanted to be called in for and what I wanted in return.

    "I am not dedicating a hundred percent of my time to the hospital," I emphasized, the older man nodding in understanding. "I am more than willing to stop by every other day or so to spend an hour or two healing all brain injuries, and I am happy to be called for specific cases that require immediate attention. I will heal anyone eighteen or under for free, as well as any life-threatening emergencies. For everyone else, if the person has insurance that covers it, I expect the usual parahuman rate. I will be making the exceptions to that rule personally.

    "The usual rate?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow.

    "Please," I said with a scoff. "If you're trying to tell me that the American healthcare system hasn't completely internalized, categorized, and created a full paperwork trail for parahuman aid in a hospital setting, then I would like to meet the real Director, please. Besides, you have Panacea here. You must know how to pay her."

    The man chuckled and nodded, leaning forward to put his elbows on his desk with a nod.

    "It's a bit complicated, but the hospital can put you on staff as a specialized consultant. We would pay into an account held by the hospital that you could withdraw cash from or attach a card to," He explained. "Though I would point out that Panacea refuses all payment, as is her right."

    "Seriously? Why? What do her parents say about that?" I said with a frown, which turned into a scowl when the man wince. "Wait, are you saying that her parents refuse payment for her?"

    "I… believe that is all I will say on that subject," he responded, now looking upset at himself for having to stay quiet.

    The room was silent for a moment before I shook my head. It wouldn't be fair to blame whatever cluster fuck was swirling around Panacea on him, especially when he likely had no control over the situation. Well, unless he had direct proof of abuse. As a medical professional, he was a designated reporter, meaning it was his responsibility to report it.

    Either way, I was now fully invested in the situation. Between what Glory Girl had said and what I was now learning, I was beginning to suspect the source of Amy's issues was a lot closer to her home than I first thought. Where I was once satisfied with Glory Girl knowing something was up, and her agreement to do something, it was now time to follow my own advice. I would check in with Glory Girl sometime within the next few days. If nothing had happened, I would be kicking the problem up the chain.

    I did not know who exactly was higher up the chain, but I would figure it out.

    "Right. Well, the consulting account system would be fine for me, assuming it all works," I confirmed with a nod, breaking the silence. "I would offer to heal people now, but I assume you can't allow that until my verification goes through."

    "You are, unfortunately, correct," he responded, looking out of the windows that lined his office, his face pulled down in a frown. "I wish..."

    The man trailed off, and I could feel there was something he wanted to say, so I stayed silent as he worked through whatever it was he was struggling with. Eventually, he turned back to his desk, opened a drawer, and started to search through it.

    "Do you smoke, Arcanum?" He asked, pulling out a very old, crumpled pack of cigarettes.

    "Do I… no, I don't," I said with a frown. "My uncle passed away from lung cancer when I was two. I always hated them."

    "Well… I would consider it a personal favor if you could take these and smoke them," he said, reaching across the desk to hold them out to me. "There is space for smoke breaks in the back of the hospital, outside by the employee parking lot, where you entered."

    I frowned, sitting still and looking at him for a long moment before my brain finally connected the dots. I nodded and reached out, the older man pushing the pack into my hands. I took them and stuck them in a side pocket.

    "Thanks, I've been looking to form a habit," I said. "I'll probably be out there for a good thirty minutes, making sure it really sticks."

    "You're welcome," He said, sounding very much like he was the one saying thank you. "If that's all, I will call you when your accreditation goes through, and we can talk in more detail."

    "Sure, that works," I responded, standing and reaching out to shake his hand.

    "I look forward to working with you," He said with a nod, before guiding me out the door, a bit of energy in him that was absent before. "Enjoy your smoke break."

    I nodded and made my way down and out of the building, letting Alya guide me to my destination. I stepped out into a small cordoned-off area, empty save for a couple of chairs, a picnic-style table, and one of the tall cigarette bins. I picked a chair and sat down in it, pulling the partially crumpled carton out. I pulled one of the death sticks out and used a crackle of sparks between my thumb and pointer finger to light it.

    "Keep this lit for me, please," I asked Alya softly, a breeze blowing across me.

    My soul-bound familiar did more than just keep it going. She pulled air through the cigarette, somehow gathering the smoke up and making it look like I was breathing it out again. All this was in spite of the fact that my mask did not have a hole to breathe through. After a minute, she spoke up, whispering into my ear.

    "What are we waiting for?" She asked, curious. "Why are we here if you hate smoking?"

    "Because he was trying to tell us something without actually saying it," I explained quietly. "You have to read between the lines."

    "I see…" She said, clearly not understanding fully. As advanced and understanding as she was, the signs that she wasn't really human still peeked through occasionally.

    We sat I'm silence for another ten minutes, pushing my first cigarette into the ashtray and starting another. I had just barely made it halfway through that one when a woman came bursting through the door. She was older than me, maybe by eight or nine, and had the weathered look of a woman under an incredible amount of stress and suffering. Her hair was unkempt, her clothes stained, and she looked like she hadn't seen the sun in days. Wrapped up in her arms was the child, a girl maybe three years old, dressed in a hospital gown, unconscious and covered with bandages.

    The woman looked around rapidly before spotting me, her eyes wild.

    "You! Are you Arcanum?" She demanded, crossing the distance between us.

    "Yes, is everything alright?" I asked, standing from my seat and jamming the cigarette into the trash.

    "No! My baby, she has … We were in an accident, and she hit her head," She explained, tears pouring from her eyes. "Please, Panacea can't do anything, and they said she was inoperable."

    "It's okay, Ma'am, I'll take a look at her," I told her confidently, guiding her to the table. "Lay her down here."

    The mother nodded and quickly laid her on the table. By now, a pair of nurses had come out, and while one looked around nervously, the other simply watched.

    "Do I have your permission to heal your daughter?" I asked, looking into the woman's eyes.

    "Yes! Please! They said she might never wake up!"

    For a moment, the woman looked as if she was about to collapse, but the nurse who was calmly watching came forward to help her sit in one of the chairs. With her permission, I turned to the child, quickly doing a scan and frowning. The poor kid was in a heck of a state. I could tell that at one point, she had a cracked skull and a damaged spine, along with a crack along her femur. Now, though, all she was suffering from was a brain bleed and some rather acute malnutrition issues.

    "Cerebrum sedes est animi, sana hanc mentem, et eius potentialem restitue!" I shouted, pouring my magic around the young girl.

    As I chanted, my magic wove itself into a complicated web around the child's head, forming into a many-sided polyhedron. Arcane symbols lit up in seven different panels of the polyhedron. After the smallest lull, the spell flared, pulling on my mana as it poured healing energy into the child. I could feel the tendrils of magic as they reached into the girl's head, healed the internal damage, cleaned up the blood, and wiped away almost any trace of the injury.

    As the spell finished its task, it shimmered away in a sparkle of light, fading away into nothing. The second that spell faded, I began chanting again, immediately moving on to the nxt injury, and then the next. Finally, when I was done I stepped back.

    "Did… did it work?" The mother asked. "Is she going to be okay?"

    "Yes, it worked," I explained with a smile. "Your daughter is completely healthy."

    The woman almost shoved me to the side to reach her daughter, but I could only smile as she hugged her closely. The daughter, confused and probably a little cold, quickly woke up in her mother's arms. I stepped back to give them their privacy.

    "Should I start another?" I asked the calm nurse quietly, already reaching for the nearly empty pack of cigarettes.

    "No, there's no one else as urgent as her," They responded, watching the touching scene. "We are already risking jobs here. No reason to do that for some concussions and a tumor you can't fix."

    "Alright, in that case, I'm off," I said, giving the nurse a nod. "If you need me, your boss has my number."

    She nodded as I turned around and walked away, my hands in my pockets as I crossed the parking lot. The happy sobs of the woman and the confused questions of the young daughter followed me until I rounded a corner of the hospital.

    "Congratulations," Alya said, warm wind rushing through my hair. "That was well done."

    "Yeah, thanks," I responded with a shrug. "Just glad I could help"

    "You saved that young girl's life. You did more than help," She pointed out. "I also now understand what you meant by reading between the lines."

    I snorted and shook my head, crossing a street and making my way down the main road.

    "I'm glad I could help you understand," I responded. "Now, what's next?"
     
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    • Love genuinely good but not illogically stupid/naive main character. Can't tell you how nice it is to have some genuine good done just for the sake of easing someone else's suffering.

    Keep up the excellent writing and thanks for the chapter! It's really shaping up, I can feel like we are in for a longer story with more slow build up, but if it keeps up like this then I'm here for the ride
     
    Just want to say I'm enjoying the story, OP. The focus on a street level healer is a lot of fun so far, and it does shine a light into groups Panacea may well miss.
     
    bgrant said:
    Just want to say I'm enjoying the story, OP. The focus on a street level healer is a lot of fun so far, and it does shine a light into groups Panacea may well miss.
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    She doesn't miss them, it's just that her mind wants to go to the dreaded word of 'triage' so she tries to do the greatest good with limited resources (seeing herself as the resource in question). It would be too easy for a relatively well-off teenager to equate hospitals as the place that everyone would go if they had life threatening injuries to go so she sees anyone that doesn't seek medical care (aka going to a doctor) as not being as priority.

    We gotta remember that everyone views their reality through their own experiences so from her perspective, here is a healer who is ignoring the people she believes has the greatest need to heal those who aren't as bad off as the people injured enough to require medical attention. Taken from her perspective, Arcanum is squandering his healing.
     
    Made an account here just to comment on this fic, it may be short, but as someone who's read fanfiction for 3 years in multiple fandoms, and in that time has read thousands, this will really go places should you continue. Thank you for writing such a great fic, and I can appreciate how the magic system feels organic.
     
    Chapter Seventeen New
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    • While what happened at the hospital was mentally draining, it was too early to head back to the shop for the night. So, instead, I decided to walk around the city for another patrol. It was just around three PM by the time I left the hospital, so I had a good chunk of time to kill. Technically, Downtown was Empire territory, so my first goal was to angle myself away from the center and towards the border between it and Docks South.

    I hated the idea of being forced to leave an area because of Nazi's, but I knew I had very little chance of coming out on top if I picked a fight with them. They had a disgusting amount of capes supporting them, especially considering the movement they represented. Even if a terrifying amount of them weren't capable of soloing me into the ground, they would still be able to overwhelm me with numbers alone.

    I was counting down the minutes until I was powerful enough to stand up to them. For now, I needed to bide my time. Staying off the Empire's radar was an unfortunate necessity for the moment.

    Or, that was the plan, at least. Unfortunately, that plan went out the window as, about ten minutes later, Alya directed me to an alleyway just off the route I was running. As I turned down into the path, I spotted a trio of big, heavily tattooed white guys looming over a single black man who had clearly been knocked to the ground. He was bleeding from a busted lip and trying to crawl backward away from the marked Nazis.

    "Fuck… god dammit," I cursed, before entering the alley and raising my voice. "Hey! What's going on here?"

    I called out, all of the people turning towards the sound of my voice. The man on the ground spotted me first, his eyes opening wide as they locked on to me. His expression shifted from fear and anger to one of hesitant hopefulness. The three Nazis all turned to face me as well, all of them looking shocked at my interference.

    "Fuck, it's a cape," one of them cursed, one of the others slapping him in his stomach to shut him up.

    "What the fuck do you want?" The largest and most heavily tattooed of them all aggressively asked. "This ain't any of your business. Just keep on walking."

    "Three dumbasses standing menacingly over someone who is bleeding?" I rhetorically asked. "Something tells me that is absolutely my business."

    The same member who had told me to take a hike took a step toward me, doing his best to seem intimidating and unconcerned.

    "Look, chump, I'm sure you're a big bad hero, but this is Empire territory," He explained as if I was a particularly slow child. "Just go on and get the fuck-"

    I cut off whatever dumb shit he was about to say by launching a quick spark of electricity. The zap made the man jump and yowl like a stuck cat, slapping at the hole I had burned through his jeans. When he tried to recover, he quickly learned that the leg that the spark had struck was useless. He nearly collapsed backward, one of his buddies having to catch him before he could.

    "I'm gonna cut you off right there. I don't care whose territory we are in," I responded, walking forward, my hands crackling threateningly. "I'm not gonna let someone get the shit kicked out of them because a couple of overcompensating punks decide they hate black people."

    For a long moment, I felt like they were about to charge me, but eventually, they pulled back. As all three of the empire goons slinked away, keeping an eye on me as they escaped. I considered trying to stop them, but I had a feeling that even if I apprehended them, they wouldn't spend much time in jail. Besides, my priority was the injured man, who was starting to breathe funny. As they disappeared down the far end of the alleyway, I waited for a breath or two to make sure they weren't coming back before I approached the still-struggling man.

    "Hey, take it easy. The bastards are gone," I explained. "You alright? Anything broken or…"

    "My hand and my chest, they stomped on me pretty hard," He said, hissing in pain and revealing a mangled, purple hand and several dirty boot marks on his torso. "Pretty... sure they broke something..."

    Looking at his hand, specifically two of his fingers that were definitely bending in directions they weren't supposed to, I couldn't help but flinch. That must have been one hell of a stomp.

    "Yeah, you've definitely got some damage here. Would you like me to fix it?" I asked, reaching out and holding his hand up by his wrist. "I've got a healing power that should let me fix this right up."

    "Healing? Like Panacea?"

    "No, my power works completely differently," I explained. "But the end results are basically the same. You not being hurt."

    He debated internally for nearly a full minute before finally agreeing to let me help. Compared to some of the stuff I had been fixing over the last week or so, this was relatively simple, as was fixing the other bumps, bruises, and scrapes the three Nazis had given him. Once he was back on his feet, I asked if he wanted to call the cops. He laughed and shook his head.

    "What for? So they can arrest me for disturbing peace or something?" He asked, shaking his head. "Nah, I just need to get the fuck out of here. Much less likely for them to plant some coke on me so they can apprehend me after I 'Resist Arrest.'"

    I nodded, not particularly surprised by his statement. I had heard a lot of bad news about the police here in Brockton, especially those that hung around Downtown specifically.

    I watched the man leave with a worried, anxious speed to his walk, his head on a swivel as he went. I couldn't help but curse and shake my head as I watched him step onto the sidewalk and turn out of sight.

    Why did it seem like everywhere I looked, all I could see were more signs that this city was hanging on the precipice of full-tilt chaos and anarchy.

    "This place is broken," I said, feeling Alya coiling around me, still invisible. "Like a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode into unrecognizable chaos. The worst part is… I'm not sure if it would be better off or not. At least the board would be wiped clean in the process."

    "That sounds like a great many people would be hurt," Alya pointed out.

    "... Yeah, I know," I responded, rubbing my neck. "I wasn't actually suggesting that.

    Confronted with just how screwed up this city was, I found myself unwilling to continue my patrol. It felt futile, more so than usual. It was painfully clear that I would never be able to make a real difference until I could directly face the kind of threats the city held. I needed a power-up desperately, but I wasn't sure if I was going to get one.

    The time for my second group of charges was fast approaching, and while I could dump the points into something new and flash, I also knew I needed a home. There was a lot of magic I could access in the future that required a place to work, and I wasn't about to spend days, and who knows how much money setting those up somewhere I would have to abandon the second someone found it.

    I needed a permanent residence, someplace I could protect and hide with magic. A place I could retreat to, if necessary, that I knew wouldn't just fall over like a stack of cards the second any cape with a brute rating knocked on my door.

    The issue was that every point I ended up spending to unlock the ability to build a place like that was also points I wouldn't be able to spend on making myself more powerful. My only real option, assuming I continued with my plan to invest points in some sort of mage home branch, was to invest slowly and hope I got lucky enough that one or two levels of knowledge was enough. I highly doubted it would be since it was such a broad concept, but I could still hope.

    There was also a chance I would get a new quest. I wasn't a hundred percent sure what the criteria were for getting one, but I had a feeling it had to do with the points recharge cycle. The most likely scenario I could think of was that I was going to get one quest per cycle, but I wouldn't be able to confirm that until I had more experience.

    That night, I barely slept, the towering, daunting reality of just what kind of uphill battle I had gotten myself into weighing on me heavily. Alya did her best to soothe me with a cool breeze, but I still tossed and turned for most of the night. `

    When morning finally came around, my first stop of the day was a nearby coffee shop. The heavenly bean juice just managed to wake me up enough that I could be considered a functional human being. When I was done kick-starting my brain with caffeine and confectionaries, I headed back out into the shop to get ready for the day. The process was a bit drawn out because I had to refill my water containers, which included a trip to the nearby gas station.

    I had to admit, the idea of finally having a place with running water, working lights, and other usual amenities was also a big part of why I was still determined to stick with my plan of building a stronghold of some kind. I might be determined to do as much good as I could in this world, but that didn't mean walking to a gas station every morning for shower water wasn't grating. It was the very definition of first-world problems, but I couldn't exactly help it.

    When I was finally ready for the day, I headed out into the city, donning my costume and going back on patrol. At this point, I was just killing time, both until my charges were refilled later tonight and for Tony to get back to me about the next outreach stop.

    According to him, there was only one more large homeless community left. It was somewhere between John's and Charles' place in terms of size, and Tony was certain he would find an in soon. Once we had helped that community, I was hoping to discuss the idea of them spreading the word whenever I was about to stop by. Charles' place had already done that to an extent, but I wanted them to understand I was happy to heal anyone who would come by and needed the help.

    I was happy with the progress I had made in healing people so far, but I knew there were a lot of people I was missing.

    As I contemplated the future and the next steps I was going to take, I continued my patrol. About half an hour in, as I was walking around the blurry line between the Docks South and Downtown, Alya got my attention.

    "There's… a pile of trash robbing a corner store two blocks to the east," She said, blowing against me in the right direction. "Some sort of golem."

    "Golem? I… don't recognize that description," I frowned, quickly altering my course and starting to vault toward what Alya had spotted. "Anything I should know?"

    "Whatever it is, it already knocked out the store owner," she responded. "He is behind the counter."

    I cursed and pushed myself to move faster, my mana draining as a result. I skidded to a stop just a few buildings away, only to watch a wave of trash pour out of a corner store. The windows of the building were smashed, and quite a bit of food, magazines, and other loose stuff from inside the store was being pulled outside by the wave. Once it was outside, the wave formed into a shabby, half-formed humanoid, maybe about eight feet tall. It turned to face me, freezing for a second.

    "What do you want!? I'm not going back!" a voice said from inside the golem-like amalgamation of trash and food, somehow still quite loud. "I just need the food! I can't eat any more rotten trash!"

    I stopped about two dozen feet away from the shaggy trash golem, partially because I really didn't want to get closer to the stench. I put both of my hands up, trying to calm the parahuman down.

    "It's okay big guy, I'm not gonna fight you," I said. "It sounds like you're struggling, I know how that feels."

    He stopped, the golem rocking back slightly as if confused. It took him a minute to constitute a response, and even then, it lacked most of the vitriol his first shout had.

    "I'm just so hungry," He admitted. "I ain't got nothing… Nobody waited for me…"

    "It's okay. You got a name?" I asked, taking a few steps closer. "Something I can call you?"

    "I… I was thinking about Heap," He admitted.

    "Alright, Heap. My name is Arcanum," I responded. "By the sounds of it, you must be pretty hungry. Why don't you let some of that trash go, and I'll buy you lunch. As much as you can eat."

    "I don't need your pity," He responded, the scowl in his voice clear as day. "I can do this just fine on my own! I just need a bit of food, then I can start."

    "Start what?"

    "I don't know! Getting back on the straight and narrow, stop stealing! I… just need a bit now…"

    Something about the way he was talking told me this man was struggling to keep it together. Part of me wondered if he was a Case 53, a living pile of trash, but I wasn't sure if asking that was a good idea.

    "That's good, but starting that out by stealing isn't a great look," I pointed out. "Especially after assaulting the clerk."

    "He had it coming!" The trash golem shouted, its limbs sagging for a moment before pulling back together. "I have nothing! He-"

    "William, there's something on the roof above you, some sort of mist!" Alya said into my ear, trying to make herself heard over the loud shouts of Heap. "It's-"

    Whatever she was about to say was cut off as a black crossbow bolt suddenly appeared in Heap's chest with a dull thud. Both of us looked down, me and the golem, to where a bolt had stuck into some metal panel from some sort of appliance, as well as a whole rotisserie chicken wrapped in plastic. The bolt itself was clearly special, with a vial of some kind running through the shaft.

    For a long moment, we were silent until, finally, the large trash and food golem snapped free of our collective shock.

    "You were just setting me up!" He screamed. "You son of a bitch!"

    The golem turned, trash gathering up in his arm as he charged at me, the wave of trashing drawing in against him as if he was pulling for more density. Before I could even react, he swung his arm out, extending it outwards and side-swiping me with a surprising amount of force. It lifted me off my feet and slammed me into the side of a van. The trash overwhelmed me, and for a moment, it blocked out the sun, the world going black.

    Charges so far:
    • Geomancy: [x][x]
    • Healing Spells: [x][x]
    • Lightning Spells: [x][x]
    • Physical Movement Enhancement Spells: [x]
     
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