There was some particularly annoying noise in the background that Clark could hear, and he wasn't entirely sure what it was. It was sort of nagging and insistent, barely audible over the sound of yet another one of his family's endless meetings and hearings. While his father droned on and on again about some meaningless noble-thing, Clark's attention kept drifting away. Still, he forced himself to try and pay attention, because that was what he was Supposed To Do, and he didn't want to disappoint anyone by getting distracted.

It really felt like the other thing was important, though.

Then he was very literally shaken for attention, as he was yanked bodily out of both the dream and his bed into the sunrise. Had he really been asleep for that long?

Oh, right, Jump. His uncle had gotten him a slot on one of those and encouraged him to go, and now he was looking at a featureless blue sky, not quite understanding what he was hearing.

"Heal, now!"

Oh! He understood that one.

Clark sat up, still somewhat blearily but with an understanding of the urgency that accompanied the command to 'heal.'

A bloody mess awaited him, the mangled visage of Jacob staring back at him wholly incongruent with the voice of Henrietta talking to him.

"I assure you," Jacob spoke in something of a raspy and obviously injured voice, "I am by no means wounded so greatly as to require this."

"Could you wash the blood off? You're so dirty." Clark asked, the first thing on. He'd learned his lesson from before, [Unblemish] really did work way, way better on wounds that were already clean. And that mattered... his still-sleepy brain trying to remember.

Right! Because he was back to level 0, and that meant he needed to worry about things like 'power limits' and 'mana capacity.'

"Kid's got a point," Jacob graveled.

"Oh! Moss," Clark remembered, "Could you... oh." At He was trying to talk to Henrietta, but the Commander was likewise really injured, several bruises tracing her arms and a bit of dried blood caked along her hairline.

"Alyssa? What about..." He flicked his gaze over to the other woman, only to note that she was no better-off than their fearless leader. Her eyes had a distinctively triumphant gleam within them, but the way she was cradling her arm and was actively bleeding from several scrapes along her arm and side, plus the way her clothing was barely hanging on and with numerous bruises beginning to form all over her body, said she was probably just running on adrenaline.

"I'll get it myself." They had collected several bits of a native moss over time, and had partially dried it out in preparation of this sort of thing. He just hoped they'd have enough, because there was a lot of blood to go around!

Clark's footing was still a little unsteady as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, but he was able to get what he was looking for from where it hung near his cooking station, swing by the water-pit to slightly moisten them, then return to where their three warriors had all apparently lost their footing and were now sitting on the ground.

"What happened?" he couldn't help but ask, as he wiped away trickles of blood from Jacob.

"You should have seen it!" Alyssa animatedly exclaimed, "It was so cool, this big four-wing attacked the tower and was breaking it, so the three of us heroically chased it away, then I jumped off the cliff and rode it down to the ground! I was actually going to miss it, but I threw my spear at it and that changed how I was going through the air enough that I didn't miss it and the spear hit it as well and oh it was so much fun."

"And your injuries?" he hesitantly asked.

"Eh. Those just came from tumbling down the shallow slope after I drove it into the ground with it."

Henrietta sighed. "Somewhat less dramatically, we fought off a giant eagle. Alyssa decided to jump off the cliff at the end, I got caught in a deathrattle that knocked me out of the sky, and Jacob had his [Frostblade] explode practically in his hand."

"This was magical?" Clark confirmed, trying to be both persistent and gentle with getting off the rivulets of blood trickling down Jacob's arm. His right hand was in very rough shape from what he could tell, with long strips of flesh torn away, and gashes that might have even brushed the bone. And while it was difficult to tell, Clark thought he might have caught a glimpse of some magical reactions happening within him, mostly interacting with Hero, "What's your Resistance?"

"Just one," Jacob replied with far too much calmness considering Clark wasn't sure how he was still able to flex his fingers, "No Recovery either, but five Strength."

"How much can Strength really keep your hand from being blown up?" Alyssa asked.

"You'd be surprised," Henrietta replied, "If you use it right."

Because Clark couldn't just wave his hand and let the weight of his stat points wash away every injury Jacob had, he needed to treat this wound as seriously as possible. And that meant... okay, assume he was going into shock.

"You should lay down. Uh. Oh, Oliver is still around. Commander, could you get Clark?"

Henrietta raised a bit of an eyebrow, but still gave out a piercing whistle, and Oliver came running over a moment later. "Yes, Commander... oh. Are you okay?"

"I'm attempting to keep Warrior Jacob from entering shock," Clark responded, pressing a hand against the man's chest to check the man's pulse. It wasn't as strong and steady as he expected, but it didn't seem quite as fluttery as it could be. "And I need water. Lots of water."

Oliver was still standing around without doing much, "Please? Now!"

The man scampered off, and Clark carefully reclined Jacob's torso so that he was fully horizontal against the ground despite the man's protests. He had lost a lot of blood, obviously, and most of that was coming from the hand... but still far less than it probably should.

Clark didn't have the most experience with seeing people hold themselves together through sheer force of will, in large part because he wasn't used to people staying this injured when he was around. Not having even a [Stabilize Wound] skill or some poultices to clot the injury was really throwing him. And the fact Jacob had at most seven stat points dedicated to this meant he really wasn't as healthy as he probably thought he did.

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That he hadn't fully collapsed was likely the best he was going to get, and Clark worked quickly, focused entirely on his patient. He held his hand a few inches above the gaping wound and concentrated, putting to use all of the things Jacob himself had taught Clark since arriving in this awesome new world, because he absolutely would not fail the very first time he actually had a job to do!

[Prince of Shining Streams] was the ideal class for a new world, because it made you look awesome while doing awesome things. It also made him very magical with lots of Aura, and that was what Clark was relying on. For big injuries, which was what Clark was treating this as despite it just being a torn-up hand, healing magic couldn't really do everything on its own. Not without bad things happening anyway, though Clark didn't exactly know what those bad things were.

But, he did know that it was important to let the body fix itself, because only it knew how it truly needed to be put together. Clark could just help it along a bit by stopping the bleeding and making sure he wouldn't die, then connecting together all the magical bits that helped the body to fully recover. He'd seen a video of how a healer once coaxed someone to heal entirely from being just a severed head! That had been really cool, and was something Clark hoped he might be able to do someday.

For now, all he could really do was to use the few points of Aura he had, the stat connecting his magic to his body, to try and feel out Jacob's aura. The thing not the ding, he sang to himself. The goal was to get it to naturally regenerate anything he'd lost. It was definitely a mess, and Clark let loose a bit of mana from his fingers to see how it flowed around Jacob's body, spot the tendrils that were drifting free after the body they'd been tied to had been damaged.

It looked a little different from what Clark remembered, but then he realized that of course it would - this was an Unchained world, so aura obviously detached from the body differently. Oh, now it was coming back to him. This was how it usually worked, with the bits of soul becoming undone from the body as the body was damaged, until the damage accumulated too much, the soul separated entirely, and the person died. But yes! That made this even more important to fix, because otherwise the regrowth of flesh would require the growth of new soul while this old stuff faded away, and would mean it would take weeks to get him back to full strength, if not more!

There also looked to be a touch of Elemental Dragon lingering in the wound, no doubt because the skill had exploded in his hand. Powerful magic could do that sometimes, scooping up Dragon mana and using that to become even more powerful and less controllable, a runaway reaction that rarely ended well. But that was really easy to deal with, because Elemental Hero was excellent at slaying Dragons, so he'd be able to [Unblemish] it like it was just a bit of mud.

Unfortunately, Clark didn't have any tools that could help with the aura-thingy, but... well, he had one tool. It wasn't a very good tool for this. But it was a tool, and it might be able to work? It wouldn't hurt to try anyway, so he ought to give it a go.

"This might pinch a little. [Unblemish]," he called on the skill, and felt the magic flow. Tangled snarls of aura were smoothed out as he pushed down Jacob's wrist. A new spurt of blood came out of the gashes in his hand, but Clark would deal with that in a moment. Because he'd already wiped away the blood and dirt, the skill quickly fixed up the scrapes and scratches that were present on the skin, but Clark put enough Mana into the skill that it reached past the strictly material and into the realm of the spirit, his fingers ensnaring the messy threads of soul and pulling on them. It felt like trying to comb metal wire, because the threads were so jittery but so hard to grasp with his skill.

Oliver was helping Jacob drink lots of water, and Clark interrupted them to ask for Oliver to pour a lot of water onto Jacob's hand to get the blood off. As he did so, Clark put his hands into the stream of water, enjoying the sensation of the cool water running across the back of his hand, and used [Umblemish] again.

With the water freshly washing away any possible dirt, Clark found his skill working even better, as the blue water mana emanating from his hand mingled with the clear water and seeped into every gash and cut, clearing out the blood and cleaning out the wounds. Unfortunately, Clark barely had enough time to pinch some of the worse cuts closed when Oliver ran out of water to pour.

Clark sent Oliver to go get more water, but kept working on trying to wipe away the injuries on Jacob's hand. It took two or three more rounds before Oliver frustratedly asked, "Can't we just do this next to the water pool?"

Oh! That was an excellent idea, and Clark agreed heartily, "Indeed! That would make this far simpler to accomplish!"

However, how best to move Jacob? Alyssa and Henrietta were both sitting in something of a slump or daze - Clark hadn't verified what, exactly, beyond ensuring that neither of them were going into shock, so they couldn't provide assistance, and Oliver certainly wouldn't be strong enough to carry the other man - not when Jacob was something like twice the size of him!

"So can we, you know, do that?" Oliver asked, apparently annoyed at Clark's attempts to determine how they might be able to move.

"Yes, that would be a good idea," Clark agreed again, not particularly bothered by Oliver's impatience.

Jacob surprised him by standing up on his own, before Clark could stop him, and simply walking over to the pool and sitting down once again. That, he supposed, was one way that it could work. It would be better if Jacob hadn't stood up because he might be in shock, but he wasn't going to scold him like a healer should, because he liked the way it turned out.

"Okay, I'll have you put your hand into the water," Clark instructed Jacob, who hesitated.

"Will that not contaminate the water?" he asked.

"Nope!" Clark cheerfully explained, "I'll clean the water more later anyway."

With the basin of water present, [Unblemish] worked even better to help bring everything together, and Clark needed to make sure he remembered that using his skill would be better used when the thing was in water. Oh! He was the [Prince of Shining Streams], after all, so maybe it would work even better when the water was flowing. And when there was more water than just being poured out of a bowl. He'd have to try that later, but right now he needed to make sure Jacob got all put back together again!

The presence of the water, still somewhat magical from its exposure to the cleaning magic in its pool, also made it way easier for Clark to feel out the ways in which Jacob's aura was... well, it was still in really rough shape. No, it was an absolute mess. He'd thought he'd made some progress earlier, but now he was doubting that he'd done anything.

Well.... so long as his body was working, right? He'd already gotten rid of the traces of [Dragon] before it could taint anything, and everything else could fix itself. Oh, and because Oliver was bring the System back, then he could just get some of his old skills and get Jacob fixed right on up rightly that way. That would be the plan, then!

Once Jacob's hand was put together, Clark used the bowl of water that Oliver had left behind when he wandered away to carefully - no drowning Jacob! But to carefully wash away the blood on Jacob's face and to smooth over the gashes on his forehead, and put the skin that had peeled away back where it was supposed to be.

Then, there was a bit of talon-y stuff embedded in Jacob's chest, but Clark didn't need to worry about removing that, because he could just [Unblemish] it away, and have the foreign body be wiped away without ever risking worsening the wound.

And then he was done with Jacob. "Make sure to take it easy," he told the former soldier, "Don't do anything hard on your hands, and avoid doing too-strenuous magic too."

"Yes healer," Jacob replied, and while he said it with a bit of an amused tilt to his voice, it still made Clark feel all warm and happy inside because he'd just been complimented on his healing! He'd healed someone, he was doing his job, and that was a high that would never fade.

The feeling wavered slightly when he started working on Alyssa, and she blearily told him to "keep his hands to himself," but that was just because she was slightly out of it and hitting her head probably had given her a concussion. There was a lot less he could do for her, but she did have some bruises that were probably indicative of some light fractures on her arms that he was able to [Unblemish] away.

Alyssa fell asleep at some point while he was treating her, but he wasn't worried. If she had gotten a concussion, him [Unblemish]ing the blood where she'd hit her head would have also taken care of the injury beneath. It was like a strain in that regard, and he'd already figured out how to deal with those reliably.

The Commander was the last to be tended to, and was the easiest of them all. She just had a few bruises, and while Clark's Mana felt like it was completely dried out, he was able to wring a slight trickle out to get some of the worse bits working again.

All in all, a successful job for Clark Haleford, he felt. It had been a good day.

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