1.3 - Treatment And The First Spell

It has been a long time since he last saw the huge majestic dome that is the center of the Council Hall in the middle of Magia and his way up the large long stairs at the front was quite a different sensation this time than he was used to. He was late for a report before the High Council, a thing which never happened before, and he was in a hurry. Every step causing a burning pain in his left stomach didn't help him speed up his climb either. Some steps he even stumbled, lost balance or simply had to pause for an instant. His draconic reflexes prevented any serious falling though, but still it slowed him down, much to the young Guardian's dismay. The two guards at the main door were already looking quite concerned even when finally this young boy in the most-ornamented Guardian uniform they've ever seen was rushing, no falling, past them. Nevertheless they didn't forget greeting as it was in order for a person of his rank and reputation.

The hallways were moving by in a flow, hardly did Drake manage to evade numerous collisions with other people walking along the halls towards their own business, when suddenly he heard a very familiar voice shouting very familiar words from behind: "Hey, you silly dragon! Where do you think you're going?" A cold chill suddenly going down his entire spine made him shudder. Drake became frozen in place and only slowly started to turn around. In all his hurry he forgot about one very important thing. He actually did run past Master Ambrosius' chambers already!

The white-bearded man in his late seventies, wearing quite an ornamented and elegant red-and-brown robe bearing the emblem of the Order of Healers, with a dusty ancient book in the one hand and two vials filled with some strange glowing elixir in the other, was slowly moving towards the young dragon in human shape, who finally managed to turn around and look into the old man's eyes for a moment, but then quickly reconsidered and finally ended up looking down to the ground in an attempt to apologize for his mistake. "Did you really think you could just slip past me on your way to the High Council after what happened down there in this outer district? I was expecting you to know me better."

"I-I'm sorry, Master Ambrosius. I didn't mean to run past your workshop, honestly." the young man started to explain. "Besides, I do know you better, of course. Else I might just be hurt by the inpolite words you greeted me with."

"Well, well, can I really believe the words of a dragon such as you?" the healer asked, still with a stern look on his face. "Why, of course I can! Welcome back, Guardian Drake. It was a long time we haven't seen each other." the old man said, now smiling all over from seeing an old friend again after quite a long while. "Hurt you are indeed, but not by my words. Why is it we both seemingly never meet without you being injured one way or another? Wouldn't it be a nice present of you, if you would come visiting me once without bleeding or suffering strong pain for a change? Ah, well, I guess that's a 'no'. After all, I am a healer. People come to me when they need healing, just like you do now. Let's go inside so I can take care of your wound. The High Council already agreed to wait for you until I'm done. But who would dare arguing with their personal healer anyways, eh?"

"Well, a little treatment won't hurt, I guess." the young dragon replied, seemingly relaxed again, "I indeed haven't talked to you for quite some time. I was already missing our conversations about the different magical and non-magical healing methods we know. Keep in mind though, for a dragon the period wasn't that long. …uhh…" Drake suddenly bent down holding his side, "We should go in. It is becoming painful standing here." he said while gritting his teeth. Master Ambrosius took Drake's arm over his shoulders and helped him inside. While closing the door he said: "Sit down on this bench already and take off your shirt. I'll fetch some utensils and healing medicine especially for dragons and then I'll take a look at you right away. Oh and you better shift back into your real shape first, as I don't know if it will work otherwise." Drake did as he was told and while walking towards the bench he shifted back into his normal dragon shape, filling the room in this bright white light. Master Ambrosius didn't pay any attention though as he knew this process already and was used to it. Suddenly the dragon almost dropped to the ground, now realizing the shape shifting was too taxing for his wound, causing much stronger pain in his stomach than before. He quickly managed to regain balance though and finally sat down on the bench and relaxed, making a mental note not to shape shift while wounded again. While the healer was cleaning his wound and preparing some sort of balm along with fresh bandages, Drake couldn't help taking a closer look at the vials lying next to him. Curiosity was very strong in dragons, especially in young ones like him. While concentrating on analyzing the substance's ingredients with his eyes, the dragon didn't even feel the burning sensation when the wound was finally sterilized. "Now that's something I never understood of you, my friend." Ambrosius started, "Why is it there are moments you seem to simply ignore any pain, for example when concentrating or while still in fight, and then there are others you're literally screaming over it?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, you got that right." the dragon answered after he became aware of his surroundings again, "I was indeed taught how to ignore pain and such when the situation doesn't allow it. Apparently it also works while concentrating on one of my senses completely, but unfortunately that's not a mental state I can keep for longer periods. It's just too taxing to be performed without real need. However, …what is that strange substance in those vials over there? It smells unfamiliar, and that means something when coming from me. I was trying to analyze its ingredients with the Eye Of The Dragon, but even knowing this now doesn't help me figuring out what it is."

"The Eye Of The Dragon? Ah, yes, I remember. You told me about it already, didn't you? Isn't it this mental training you dragons use to access the additional information from your incredibly developed senses your brain is usually suppressing, not to overwhelm your mind with too high awareness of the details of your surrounding? And you really analyzed all ingredients already just by looking at it? Even their individual mixing ratio?!" the healer asked surprised, but Drake was just nodding and answered: "Yes, you're right. That's it. We would be too overwhelmed and disoriented to even walk straight alone, if our brains weren't blocking this overhead of information from our senses. Let alone imagine the sensory overload that would damage our brain cells, if we were constantly receiving this insane amount of information. Fortunately we learned how to concentrate on breaking this barrier temporarily for a short targeted release of all details we need. And yes, I now could write you a recipe of what's in those vials. But still, knowing the parts alone doesn't make you knowing the assembly. I could mix this stuff myself now, but I still am clueless about what it is!" Ambrosius was still trying to get over the shock of learning how far this enhanced draconic awareness actually goes when he took the old dusty book from the ground where he placed it and reached it towards his young friend. "It's a mixture especially designed for a dragon's metabolism." the healer explained, "It is said to increase the rate of your natural regeneration for a medium time period of around an hour or two. I was impatient to try it out, but, as you can imagine, I didn't have a dragon at hand until now. I found the recipe in this ancient book, together with some other substances and quite detailed depictions of you dragons' anatomy. I was amazed when I stumbled across this, as literature about your kind is really hard to come by nowadays. As you can see though I already put it to good use, didn't I? I knew it would come in handy sooner or later… and considering your tendency towards combat injuries, rather sooner than later. You won't believe where I found this treasure though. It was lying in a pile of crumbled paper and notes on one of the market stands last month, imagine that! That strange emblem on the front cover made me curious so I gave it a closer look. You can imagine how surprised I was when I found it telling about dragons right after the 3rd page! Just so you don't worry though, I let it get authenticated by the scholars before I took anything in it for real of course."

"That's amazing! Scientific literature about my kind? I thought it was all lost ages before my birth already." the young dragon replied, curiously looking at the book from all sides, turning pages by pages skimming through the text, "This emblem you discovered actually is of draconic origin. Though the text within was clearly written by a human. It says it was a biologist or something, a member of the Order of Light. I wonder how it got to the market place though, considering their archives like all their structures were burned down during the Great War… ah, well, but what is this? No, that can't be!"

"What is it? Oh, that's some sort of spell I also found on this page. " Ambrosius said, "But I couldn't make any use of it yet, as it's written in a language I don't understand… you, however, seem to recognize it, don't you?"

"If I recognize it? Are you kidding? These are symbols from Ancient Draconic! It's my mother tongue!" the young dragon replied, seemingly surprised to find something like this in the outer world, "Did the order know our vocabulary? But that makes no sense. Noone else but we dragons can even voice it!" The puzzled Drake was now skimming through the pages before and after this particular section containing these all-too-familiar letters, "Shhz shalamay cha delemn…" he started, instinctively remembering how to voice each symbol, organs somewhere deep inside his throat producing sounds Ambrosius could only hardly perceive, while his split tongue kept whistling some sort of varying static all over it, "Powers of nature within me…" Drake quickly translated, as he realized his old friend didn't understand a word, "energies of magical source…" he continued, now always the draconic original first and a proper translation quickly afterwards, "concentrate inside my body to revitalize me and give me strength." When Drake finished this he suddenly felt very uneasy, a mysterious tickling sensation was travelling through his whole body until it finally concentrated at the area in his left stomach. The wound slowly started glowing and then all of a sudden also closing on its own, stopping further blood loss and sealing the opening cut. Both him and Master Ambrosius jumped in surprise.

"Holy god, Drake, what was that? I wasn't aware you know magic!" the surprised healer said. "Me neither, Master. I never used magic before. I didn't even know I was capable of this!… Well, apparently this seems to be a draconic healing spell of sorts. If I read it correctly, it enhances the natural ability to regenerate by using the target's own inner magical resources… or those of the caster. It's quite similar to what those vials do, but it will only work with magical creatures such as me. You humans for example don't have your own magic inside you like we do. It isn't your source of life… It reads here the spell was working in both, the draconic original and the human translation. Now why was it written down in Ancient Draconic then?… Alright, I will best write it down for you so you can use it for your other patients as well. I think it could be quite helpful for you to know a powerful spell such as this one… Hey, that wound completely closed already. This spell is great!" the dragon said, bending his previously wounded lower body into all directions to test for left injuries underneath, "I still can't believe I actually managed to cast it though… and also only by accident that is!… really weird…"

Master Ambrosius examined the wound more closely though and issued a word of warning: "Don't take it too lightly, Drake! You're seemingly still wounded underneath. The spell only closed the outside and stopped the bleeding. I'm only not concerned because you dragons' cellular regeneration is incredibly fast anyways even without such aid, but still you have to be careful, see?" and he gently pressed two fingers against the healed wound, causing Drake to bend down again realizing it did indeed still hurt. The healer applied some of the balm he prepared to the hurting region below his scales and finished the bandaging he started before. When he was done Drake shifted back into human shape, again feeling the pain increase shortly, reached the piece of paper he wrote the translated spell down on over to his friend Ambrosius, still trembling a little, but rather from the sudden realization he could use magic without even knowing how to than from his injuries, which were now mostly gone, and issued a few words of warning while putting back on his shirt again and preparing to leave, "One thing I must tell you about this kind of spell though, Master. Regardless of whose inner magic it uses to do the healing it will be quite taxing on your psychic strength the longer the casting lasts. If you humans cast it longer than you can stand it, you might pass out and maybe even take similar brain cell damage to what we dragons suffer from when letting our senses overwhelm our minds. By all means stop concentrating as soon as you feel weaker or even sleepy! A dragon could easily kill himself while consuming his magic, his life source, to heal others, or himself, this way, but you humans won't be a lot safer either! Keep that in mind, please. But I know you will. And thank you for your treatment."

"Now wait a moment there, dragon!" the healer replied, "You donate me this translated spell, add a warning such as this, and that's it? You're leaving already? I didn't even tell you to dress again yet, and by all I know I am the healer of us two!" But when Master Ambrosius finished his speech and turned around again he realized Drake wasn't even sitting in front of him anymore, but instead was already opening the door to leave.

"I'm sorry, Master, but I have to go now. The High Council is waiting for me and I don't want to delay my report any further, now that my wound is taken care of and I'm already feeling better. I will get back to you when we're done, before I leave the city to my next mission, but now I really have to leave." the young dragon told the still stumped healer, and this one, now seeing no way to hold the Guardian any longer, finally agreed and gave his approval for the dragon to leave. "There's no sense in arguing with you, as you always win. Over 3 centuries of experience are hard to beat by a puny little human in his late 70′s. But you really do come back later, or I'll send the guard to return you, got me? See you later, troublesome little dragon." the old man said, standing in the door and waving with one hand after the young man leaving towards the Council Chambers.