Аннотация: About the different directions of magic. Blood healing.
Chapter 1.2 A new life in the Circle of magicians.
That's how I started my life in the Circle Tower. As it turned out, students are actually given the basics of permitted magic schools that do not have combat use, as well as a magic projectile spell. The rest has to be searched out in the library on their own after the Torture and, if possible, trained under the supervision of more experienced colleagues. So I understood perfectly well why Jovan decided to learn a powerful blood magic spell to pass the test. Well, that's good, now I knew that I wasn't too far behind the magician who had just been tortured.
The library was a quiet place filled with treatises on magic, the Templars didn't show up there, so I started spending a lot of time there. Speaking of Templars, I haven't found any in armor heavier than leather. Which, however, is not surprising - it is problematic to run after a magician in a light robe in armor, and protective runes do not necessarily have to be applied to metal.
Yes, unlike in the game, the magic resistance runes were not weapons at all, but armor, which was to be expected. I suspect that they also made weapons in the game in order not to bother with the implementation of runes for armor and leave them for Awakening. So the templars looked rather ridiculous in their leather armor and all-metal helmets with eye slits. Obviously, such helmets were used, firstly, to protect the head, and secondly, to reduce the field of vision in order to avoid blinding the magician's spell.
Once a day, walking along the room-library route, I met with the templars at a minimum and was satisfied with this. I'll survive without kicks and punches. I only left the library to get rations from Leora, get some sleep, or go to the bathroom. The sewage system in the tower was extremely simple - everything drained directly into the depths of the lake through inclined tunnels made in the stone walls of the tower by earth magicians at a time when this magic was not yet limited. Naturally, there were no toilets or the like, just holes in the floor of the exits of these tunnels. The same earth magicians, together with the fire magicians, even set up a hot water supply, so that the lack of toilet paper was compensated by the presence of something like a bidet. And in one of the halls on the ground floor, built into the rock, there was a decent pool with warm running water supplied from the lake.
At first, I wanted to get a general impression of magic, so I quickly skimmed through the basic information on the four schools of magic, without going into the details of spells. Then I moved on to the forbidden magic, which I only had general information about. Unlike the game, forbidden magic included not only blood magic, but also earth magic and local telekinesis. Only regional telekinesis, classified as a Force Mage in Dragon Age II, was allowed. At first it amazed me, but then I imagined the cobblestone of an earth mage or a log lifted by telekinesis flying at the templar... As it turned out, the Templars' notorious ability to resist magic turned out to be the ability to suppress the effects of the Fade. But if a log is already flying at you, no "holy punishment" will stop the flight of the log - it is powerless against simple inertia. This means that this magic should be banned so that the magicians do not get out of "control", this is exactly what the templars decided.
By the way, Jovan was surprised at my zeal, but I said that the test makes you rethink a lot, so he soon fell behind. Our communication gradually came to naught, because I did not express a desire to communicate, and he really got carried away with his Lily.
As time passed, Duncan did not appear. After a couple of weeks, I switched from theory to practice, and under Wynn's supervision, I applied my first healing spell on myself. Further progress in the art of healing was quite steady - I began to successfully use the recuperation spell three months after the Torture, and then a weak but stable regeneration spell. When I had learned enough healing magic, Irving transferred me to become a healer's assistant.
The healing chambers are the inside of the beautiful picture "Templars protect the world from blood magicians." The place where Wynn tries to get the mages back on their feet after the Templars overdo it. The place where we scooped out the last drops of mana to help others. A place under the power of the spirit of Faith, living in the healer and trying to somehow save the magicians.
Lyrium potions? And who will give them to the magicians? The first Caster is allowed three cones per year, the Older Ones two each. Potions for magicians are, you know, not beneficial to the church. Lyrium goes to the templars and the Tranquils for artifacts. That's why the church-loyal, moral, and slightly pretentious old lady Wynn from the game actually turned out to be a blood mage of such experience that Uldred would turn pale. No, she wasn't interested in blood subjugation or any other techniques, only the ability to transform life force into mana. But she has honed this skill so much... Because when you have a patient dying in your arms who has been worked on again, it's not up to church morality. However, she probably got her knowledge of blood magic from the library or from her teacher, and she didn't mess with demons.
As I read in the library, the basics of blood magic consisted in the ability to transfer vital energy into the Fade, in exchange for receiving the energy of the Fade - mana. Wynn, on the other hand, has learned to directly transfer her life to the spirit with much greater efficiency. However, what else could be expected from someone who is still alive only because of the spirit.
By the way, the same Blood Control consisted of partially merging part of his life force and the controlled one's life force. At the same time, his mind was forcibly immersed in Fade so as not to interfere. The spell that was called a Bloody Wound in the game apparently consisted of mixing the life energy of the victims with the energies of the Fade. In general, this was clearly not my way - I didn't want to work so closely with Fade. However, the question of what to do when the mana ran out threatened to become more acute.
In general, at first I lived on a schedule: wake up in the morning, go up to the second floor, take rations for myself and the sick from Leora, inspect the magicians in the healing rooms, have breakfast if nothing urgent, and start healing; in the evening, go to the library, if nothing urgent, sit there, reading books, go down to first floor and go to sleep. Since I went through the specifics of using a healing spell in practice, I didn't read the healing literature in depth - anyway, Wynn's advice on how and when to use spells was more useful and lively. And anyway, all the techniques learned from books would have to be practiced with her. I got down to choosing my future specialization.
Yes, I shouldn't have smiled when I bought another "manual" in the game. Because the library's books on specializations opened up another non-classical approach to magic, a kind of detour, essentially being "manuals". By the way, there were no game "specialization points", of course. Moreover, for each specialization, the requirements were not limited to the seventh level of the character, but were much more complex, often requiring serious immersion in certain areas of classical schools. For example, to become a Stormbringer, you had to seriously study the magic of cold and lightning magic. However, it was worth it - The Storm of the Century, presented in the game as a combination of spells, was actually a slow-moving and monstrously alluring, but deadly spell of this rare specialization. As an example, Adain from Starhaven was cited, who with the help of this spell lifted so much snow from the ground that the templar pursuers simply did not dare to go into the resulting storm, but could not get around. This allowed the magician to escape and prepare a shelter. When the templars found him, not one survived, but the phylactery was destroyed. As far as I still remembered from Dragon Age II, you could buy his staff somewhere in the Kirkwall area. However, in reality, it was probably stored somewhere in the deep cellars of some Circle or was broken.
There were many specializations, they were very different. Some were allowed and frequent, and there was a lot of information about them. For some, there were only short descriptions or legends. In particular, under some cover with an obscure title, I found a book on summoning demons using blood magic... It seems that the Templars don't visit this part of the library at all. But at least now it was clear where Uldred had gotten the spells in the game for his idea of summoning the demon of Pride.
I myself was interested in healing specialties, which were woefully few, and they were not very popular. I was not attracted to Spiritual Healers. And then I came across a translation from a Tevinter translation from an Elven book about a legendary specialty. I must say right away, he didn't pull the manual, so I had to deal with everything from scratch. Picking up a book and, for comparison, a folio on the basics of blood magic, specifically, the exchange of life for mana, I began my research.
Several times I wanted to give up everything, and if it hadn't been for one incident, I would have stopped trying to bring the ancient legend back to life, having managed in theory to recreate only one spell-technique. But everything turned out exactly as it turned out.
***
By that time, I had already moved out of the Magicians' rooms a week ago. The fact is that I didn't feel any need to go down to the first floor of the Tower other than to sleep. Besides, a healer might often be needed at night, and running through the entire tower was unwise. However, Wynn's cubbyhole at the healer's quarters was small and half full of supplies of healing potions. So Wynn made arrangements with Leora, and I set up a second couch in the elf's room.
In the morning, the Senior Spell Caster and I woke up almost at the same time, which gave us a rare opportunity to talk back then.
"Are you already eager to get to work?" Leora said, watching as I threw back the blanket.
"Don't you approve?"
"You're usually either all in treatment or with your head in books. It seems that you are literally striving somewhere, devoting yourself to this aspiration. You rarely rest. Are you in such a hurry to become a Senior Caster and eventually replace Wynn? But you didn't seem to be so diligent and persistent before. However, I didn't know you well, so I might be wrong."
"And so is it. After meeting demons, you look at a lot of things differently. And also one visit to the Wynn fiefdom, right after the test. And what made you the youngest Senior Spell Caster? What turned a beautiful girl into a statue of white marble? Why did you choose the white color of the robe?"
By the way, the motionless Leora really resembled a white statue with a pair of emerald eyes. As it turned out in practice, the red-haired and dark-skinned elves were an invention of the developers. The skin of all elves was completely devoid of not only hair, including hair in the armpits and groin area, but also pigmentation. The natural hair color was gray.
However, albinos and melanists were quite common. It seems that this frequency was caused by the fact that such elves were not considered defective or labeled demons, as they once were in Europe, so they left offspring as calmly as ordinary elves. However, the pigment that turns the eyes green was produced independently of the second one, which turns the hair gray and affects the eyes, and did not succumb to either albinism or melanism.
"The healing chambers. A place where the true face of the Church of Light and its templars is clearly visible. And then a magician with a soul opened by a Test. Wynn told me once that it was the same with her. The spirit of Faith pulled her to enter the healing chambers... Well, frankness for frankness. My story is longer. You know Cullen's deeds. At eleven, I was caught by his immediate predecessor in possession of the title of the main lover of young elves. Now this templar is not here, he has long been unfit for service due to the effects of drinking lyrium. I was lucky - he was too lazy to drag me somewhere and decided to take care of me right in the hallway. He only managed to break my arm, as I was kicking, and tear off my robe when Irving and Wynn appeared. They pulled me out under some pretext. I swore then that I would never be in that position again. And I started spending all my time in the student library. As a result, I entered the Test not only with a magic projectile spell, but also with lightning and the grip of winter. After the test, I continued to develop the magic of cold and lightning. Subsequently, I became the youngest Stormbringer in the history of our Circle. And I was recognized as a Senior Caster. And the white color... As you correctly pointed out, I look like a marble statue. The less likely it was that the Templars would be interested."
"And then you just got used to it?"
"Exactly."
After finishing the conversation, we went to the storerooms. Leora gave me food for the sick, and I went to the healing rooms. After feeding the mages who were unable to eat on their own and giving rations to the others, we began treating those who appeared in the healing chambers overnight. The patients have been extremely numerous over the past three days.
"Why such an influx? It's already the third day."
"You don't know?" Wynn was surprised. "Anders ran off to the Pearl again. So those templars who did not go on a campaign after him, and, accordingly, will not get into the "Pearl", are furious with all their might. And as soon as Anders thought of running away to a brothel... If the Templars had caught him anywhere else, they would have nailed the fugitive on the spot. As it is, chasing Anders is even considered a joy."
"So the Templars, left without a brothel, are furious."
"Well," he said, "there's a miniature brothel for them at the Princess, but it's not big enough for the Pearl. Gregoire's work is on that bed, and his first deputy is on the next one..."
"I'm more worried about Cullen," I said.
"There were no injuries from Cullen, probably he went on a campaign for Anders... Wait, I saw him the day before yesterday, he's in the tower!"
I rushed to the library-there is always one of the Senior Spellcasters there. When I found Uldred and Torrin there, I told them that we were missing Cullen's victim, even though he seemed to be in the tower. They understood me right off the bat and immediately went looking for me. If anyone had a chance to recapture the victim from Cullen, it was only the Senior Casters. Having organized the search in this way, I returned to the victims of the Templars.
About half an hour later, the doors opened abruptly, and Torrin and Uldred brought in the same gray-haired elf, whose appearance determined my path as a healer. She looked terrible-an open fracture of her right arm, a pair of crushed ribs, legs covered in her own blood...
Uldred swears that he will lock Cullen in a cage, drive him to madness, and then personally cut out his heart. Uldred whispered, laying the girl on the bed, which was fenced off by screens enchanted to absorb sound from the rest and designed for particularly difficult cases when nothing should distract.
That's when I realized why Cullen got into the magic circle in the game, and why he was being driven crazy, the only one of all the templars. Uldred and Torrin left. And Wynn took care of the girl.
"It's useless," she said almost immediately, desperation in her voice.
"Why?" I asked.
"She hadn't been fed for at least a day and a half, and she had lost too much blood. The body simply has nothing to recover from. Her heart is still beating only because of her magic power. But if I try to heal her, she will die of exhaustion in the process. I stood in silence for a while, and remembered the spell I had restored, but had never tried in practice. If the girl had been human, she would have died for sure if I had tried to use my spell. But she was an elf, which meant there was a chance if I didn't make a mistake with the spell.
I looked around for something sharp, and immediately noticed a knife on a low table. Obviously, while preparing everything for the treatment, Wynn had not forgotten about her knife for opening boils and for blood magic. I took it from the table.
"Will you make sure that she doesn't suffer?" Wynn asked.
Instead of answering, I cut open both my palms, grimacing in pain.
"What are you going to do?" the healer asked.
I came close and put one hand on the fracture and the other on the leg wound. And then my blood, obeying my will, gushed into the girl's half-empty veins and arteries. And my heart drove my blood through her body. The fading beat of the girl's heart, supported only by her magic, changed the rhythm, adjusting to my heart.
"Treat her!" I said to Wynn. - Don't ask anything, just treat me.
Then I had a chance to observe the skill of the Senior Spell Caster. Not understanding how I was supporting the girl and how she was still alive, Wynn healed the wounds on her body one by one and replaced the pieces of bones. At the same time, her magic carefully bypassed my blood, never breaking the connection for a moment.
Half an hour later, the healing was complete, and I allowed the connection to break, leaving the elf with my blood flowing in her body at that moment. I felt very weak. I felt sleepy.
But the cured elf woke up.
"Where am I?" where is HE?"
"You're in the healing chambers," Wynn replied.
"And no one will give you to him. What's your name, blood sister?" I asked.
"Mirelle," the elf replied.
"Sleep, blood sister, you need to rest." At this point, Wynn cast a soporific spell, and the girl's eyes closed.
"A blood sister?" Wynn asked. "Considering that she's got your blood in her right now, though... After all, it was the blood healing that disappeared during the fall of Alartan, you directly transfused not only her blood, but also your life. After all, Irving was right, Irline couldn't stand the test, and in his body, an ancient magician who somehow survived the Fade returned to our world."
It looks like my conspiracy has gone to waste... But I didn't really care-I was ruled by Mercy and a sense of caring for Mirelle, as well as Hatred for Cullen.
"And do many people think the same?" I asked.
"Irving assumed that you were an ancient elven mage. I was afraid that you were some kind of spirit or demon. But Leora said right away that she doesn't care who you are. She said she was ready to accept anyone who helps magicians, unless of course they are the Creator! We didn't tell the others about the situation, they don't have anything to do with you."
"Yeah, we don't need a Creator. Apparently, have you decided to accept Leora's point of view? So why do you need my confession? You can still call me Irline. I'm going to sleep it off if you don't need me urgently."
"No need," Wynn replied.
Wearily, I left the healing room and headed towards the bed.