90. Dissonance I (Patreon)

“For the twelve stars! How did you get this hurt?” Alatea instantly screamed as I entered her office.

“You’d be surprised.” I dropped dead on her cushion-sofa.

“Edrie, do I need to remind you how just a week ago you told me how you resurrected multiple times, killed a person, assaulted a monarch, and I don’t know, met with a divinity who you apparently already knew?” Alatea rolled her eyes, breathing, incarnating sarcasm.

“Yeah, fair.” I sighed. “It isn’t as exciting as that. I meant it more as ‘you’d be surprised how moronic am I’.”

“I’ve known you for two decades, I know how moronic you can be.”

“Gee, thanks.” I slowly raised my back from the sofa. “So, anyways, this damage I got it by dispelling Mystic’s Dominion.”

Alatea's brows raised in doubt and interest. She left her quill on the ink pot and looked at me.

“Do tell.”

“Basically, you know how I was constantly casting Mystic’s Dominion?” The healer nodded. “Well, I didn’t notice I was not only really fatigued but also very hurt, so when I decided to cancel it for the first time, it was as if I cut my life support.”

Her emerald eyes shone with cold realization, noticing the hidden meaning behind my words.

“You died.” Alatea declared as a matter of fact, and she was, indeed, correct.

“Yeah, and because this was my first time dying without Mystic’s Dominion, reincarnation notwithstanding, I got hurt.” I extended my arms to show Alatea my crumbling body.

“You have an idea why this is happening.” She added calmly.

“Indeed,” I nodded. “I fear that this is the result of dissonance between my body and soul. A spiritual dysmorphia of sorts.”

“Spiritual dysmorphia...” Alatea mumbled deep in ponderation and stood up from her pillowed chair. She went to her miniature library and looked for something. “Dissonance... Hmm.”

This gesture wasn’t needed. Like me, Alatea could cast True Recall, and probably better than me. I guess she enjoyed flipping through the pages. And she most likely had used True Recall because she stopped right on the page and line she wanted.

“Patients who have woken up from a comma, especially spiritually related one, have suffered from a great dissonance from the body to their minds and souls.” Alatea narrated the contents aloud. “Tests have shown that their cognitive and spiritual selves stagnated whilst their body continued growing. Though collaborating mentalists assured the opposite was true, that mind practitioners suffered dysmorphia, unable to recognize themselves as they spent too much time in accelerated thought.”

Alatea shoved the book to my face and pointed repeatedly at the last line with her long purple finger.

“This part is what I was thinking of.” She said, removing the book from my face. “Minutes, or even seconds, of desynchronized body-mind time are enough to cause minor confusion to mages. But I fear your case might be even worse.”

The healer left the book back on the bookshelf and sat on the cushion before me.

“Mystic’s Dominion has augmented your mystic cognitive capabilities, but you also have phased your consciousness to the spiritual plane multiple times, a thing I told you multiple times NOT to do, therefore separating it from your body.” I nodded at her words. “But that isn’t the end. You also died multiple times. In that period your body did not grow but instead atrophied because it was dead. We cannot ignore either your time in the river. The Nethergate ritual severed completed your soul-body link, simulating a reverse comma.”

Oh, yeah. The Nethergate ritual. I had almost forgotten about it. The tenth star ritual was interesting from an academic standpoint, but I valued it more because it was what allowed me to retake Marissa’s soul from the afterlife.

“And then,”

“There’s more?” Alatea gave me a dirty gaze as I interrupted her. She renewed her lecture.

“Then we have the Regeneration spell. It literally brings the body to a prior state using the memories in your soul of a more optimal and healthier self. You were constantly pushing your body backward as your soul progressed further on.”

“Why haven’t you told me to not use it as you did with my consciousness shift?” I was aware that overusing healing spells was bad, especially because they had a slow error margin which could spiral out of control and end up growing cancers all over the body, but I didn’t know Regeneration had that added bonus.

“Edrie, I have told you on multiple occasions to stop fighting and putting yourself in harm’s way. And also, to learn more healing spells.”

“That you did, yes.” She sighed in defeat at my words.

“To summarize, your body has some catching up to do. I don’t expect it to be much. Maybe a few hours, a day at most.” Considering how the book told that a few seconds may cause light confusion, a day sounded quite severe. “I will heal your body and slightly mend your soul in a non-intrusive way, but you have to dispel Mystic’s Dominion. These coming days you should rest so your body, and possibly mind, catches your soul.”

Alatea stood up and sat beside me on the couch, where she applied pressure on my head with her hand, forcing me to lie down. Mana flowed through my body; it was white. She also didn’t cast Force Unconsciousness, so this process didn’t need the patient to be asleep or wouldn’t hurt.

“You should really learn more healing spells.” The healer added as her hands flowed down, coursing through my neck and arriving at the torso.

“I mean, I guess I’m able to do so now,” I explained. “For ‘reasons’ I am rescinded of my soldier duties for the time being. So, I guess I could spend some days coming to your office and learning some advanced healing spells and rituals.”

“You should consult me so before deciding it by yourself.” Alatea expressed in a neutral tone as her silky hands caressed my scorched arm. She was unable to heal it, obviously.

“What do you think I was just doing now?”

“What you did now is forcing yourself onto me, already supposing that I would help you with your learning.” A hint of irritation hid behind her calm and soothing voice.

“Aren’t you?” Whilst my voice had a roguish shade.

“You are an odious person, Edrie Nightfallen.”

“Thank you for your praising, Alatea Decourse,” I added with a smile, and she groaned. “I wouldn’t expect less from my master.”

“And I from my disciple.” She joked with me.

The touch of an experienced healer was something I couldn’t replicate. Her hands moved around my body and mana weaved with such delicate movements I would not be able to comprehend them if it wasn’t because of my training as a manaweaver.

Alatea was able to manipulate mana in both the physical and spiritual planes without any trouble. Actually, she may even be able to do it on the cognitive. She and Kirielle exchanged so much information that they created a synergic bond where they pushed each other onto greater heights as the cognitive and spiritual planes were heavily linked.

That’s why both of them were eleven-star mages.

Where was I? This healing is too soothing.

I was expecting pain and perhaps Alatea simply decided against sedating me just to make me suffer a bit. It was a bit of an anti-healer thing to do, against the codes and all of that, but she also knew I wouldn’t die even if I had my heart ripped out of my ribcage, so who knows?

Edrie, you are rambling again. I told to myself.

The most important factor about Alatea’s healing magic was that she wasn’t using spells. Spells are a standardized and optimal way to do magic, but they aren’t mandatory to do so.

Her magic was mostly composed of one-star unstructured magic and some two-star cantrips. I could sense the Soul Touch and Soul Sight cantrips at work. Beyond Soul Touch’s soothing effects, the spell was also effective to... well... touch the soul.

Spells tended to be pretty self-explanatory. Even the grandiose-sounding ones of the tenth star and above. Mystic’s Dominion was, indeed, the dominion of the mystic.

I was rambling again, wasn’t I?

It was difficult to concentrate when you were being dosed with the spiritual equivalent of morphine. Wait, was she boosting my secretions levels? A good healer could manipulate the glands of a patient to release appropriate substances, so it wouldn’t be unexpected that Alatea had done it.

I think I’m just too stoned to tell if that’s the case.

Who would have thought that having your soul literally handled around could be this comfortable?

It was difficult to keep my concentration up. Whether it was straight thoughts or outright lucidity. My sight shifted from the spiritual and corporeal planes intermittently, unable to focus on one place. The feeling wasn’t that much different from when your eyelids felt heavy from sleep deprivation.

I was incredibly comfortable, drowning myself in pleasure similar to sleeping on the grass of a sunny Scorch day when, suddenly, an electric feeling went down my spine causing me to jump out of the cushion and stand up involuntarily.

I caressed my long ears as I felt a warm feeling on them.

“Oh my, it would appear that your ears I quite sensitive to healing,” Alatea said in faux guilt, her visage bolstering with schadenfreude as she rubbed her fingers together, recalling the feeling.

“Did you?” I asked reflexively even if I knew she did do what I thought.

“They were quite enticing.” She smiled at me. A warm expression worthy of the Lady of the River of the Damned.

Did she steal my ear-rubbing virginity? Why do women play with my body as if it was their own? I blushed a bit, recalling how Marissa forced her way into my mouth a few days ago.

“Those are quite sensitive, you know?” I replied, somewhat pissed off, trying to banish those thoughts. “No that would you know it, of course.”

“Did you just call me short-eared?”

Yet that managed to offend her. Moderately.

Long ears were considered a sign of femininity, akin to large breasts or wide hips. I was surprised no one bullied me for it in my childhood, besides my mother that is. It seems like a very ellari thing to do. Laugh at each other’s ears.

“Considering yours are half as long as mine, then yes. Yes, I did.” I added smugly. I wasn’t bothered by conventions and traditions; I took pride in my long ears.

Though Alatea stopped hearing me, her eyes fixated a bit over my head. No, she wasn’t looking at my ears.

“Edrie,” She added with an alarmed tone, her eyes open like plates, provoking my burlesque thoughts to vanish. “Your soul is showing.”

“What do you mean my soul is showing?” I followed her gaze to then find lavender tendrils oozing on top of me yet disconnected from my body. “Oh, shit. My soul is showing.”