Evren was lying in bed covered in bandages. During the fight with the drake, he had gotten burned while protecting Isobel. Although he could heal the wounds with magic, it would take some time, and he was exhausted. He had also lost a bit of skin when his armor was removed. It laid on the table nearby still clinging to pieces of charred flesh.
The party had almost fallen apart when Evren got injured as everyone had gotten worried, but Evren's strong voice commanding them managed to pull them out of their stupor and defeat the drake. The armor was then removed, and some healing was done by Harley, but it was too much for her at the time. Evren couldn't see the wound to heal it so he had to rely on Harley for the healing.
When they got back to Anbuton, they took him to the house where Evren was staying, drawing the attention of many of the townsfolk. Many were concerned because since Evren's arrival, the townsfolk had been recharged and some had even started to rebuild the fortress. A group of young artisans had gone to Aernide Fortress to work on their various skills and had managed to repair the main gate. They were still working on the other gates but were spending more time working on repairing the walls.
Several of the older folk had gathered up the remains of the dead residents of Aernide fortress and buried them in a mass grave with a memorial stone placed above it. Although it had been a few decades since the fall, many of the older ones had relatives and friends that died up there. They couldn't identify specific remains, even many of those in their own homes were unknown.
When winter ended and spring came back around, they had begun to send out hunters to the forests to collect wild game, not wanting to rely on Evren. Some of the younger folk had decided to stay up there in a fixed-up home, so they would be able to work on the fortress without having to keep coming down to the dungeon. Life was slowly returning.
Evren spent most of his recovery time reading. He had several books placed on the floor around the bed he was reading from or referencing to. The ones he was reading through now were journals left by merchants detailing the products and locations of where to get them, who best to trade with and the best rates for the seasons. Evren had learned the locations of several of the towns and cities in the area and was more closely interested in the ones that had trade involving sea products. Evren wasn't sure if anyone was there, or if any boats survived, but it was a possibility. The ports Dhalmer and Smithsville were the two closest ones mentioned in the journal. One was on the northern coast, the other on the southern.
The northern town, Smithsville was on the other side of the hilly/mountainous area. Although it was a shorter straight-line distance, it was farther and harder to get to. To get to the southern port, Dhalmer, he would have to pass through the capital Hidabaro and a few other towns on the way. The easiest route for that one was to head back to the abandoned fort he had passed through on the way to Plinth and take the western road. The fort he had found was only given a number as a name; it was Eighty-four.
Evren had read that in the commander's journal but thought that Eighty-four was the name of the unit, and not the name of the fort they were stationed to. Although now that he thinks about it, it could be both. The town between Plinth and Eighty-four with the new dungeon in it was called Norwater, and the first town that Evren visited was called Madelaya. He wanted to write the names down on his maps, but he couldn't reach it and there was nobody around to help him, and he was too exhausted to care to try telekinesis.
He also had a book containing all the useful plants that could be used in alchemy. Without the plants themselves, or the ability to use alchemy, the greatest benefit to the book was how fast it made him sleep. He recognized some of the plants as herbs he had been using as seasoning, such as turmeric and pepper, which can reduce inflammation and pain. Mostly though, the book was hard to read and even now he was beginning to nod off.
The door opened and Isobel walked in. "Evren, time to clean your wounds." She said as he approached the table with some rags and water. Harley entered as well and came to sit on a stool next to Evren to look at the wounds. "You really should rest more Mr. Evren." She said as Isobel came over with a bowl of water and some cloth. She handed the cloth to Harley and held the water nearby so she could dip it in.
"I was about to fall asleep when you guys came in." Evren said. "And you really should use alcohol on that instead of water. Well, no water's good to an extent, I suppose you could use alcohol after cleaning it out.
"Don't move Mr. Evren." She said as she dabbed the cloth into the water and then onto Evren's burnt skin. As she worked, Harley had a look of concern on her face. "It doesn't hurt, Mr. Evren?"
"Yeah, it does." Evren said casually.
"Then why does it not look like it does?" Isobel asked.
Evren paused to think about how to answer and shrugged, "I'm used to it?"
"How could you be used to pain Mr. Evren?" Harley asked with a frown.
"Well, the two weeks before I died were filled with different types of torture, and my military career wasn't all sunshine and butterflies." Evren said indifferently. "I guess when you get to be my age, you just learn to deal with it. Besides, screaming and writhing about in agony won't do any good."
"That's sad." Isobel said and Harley nodded.
Again, Evren shrugged. He felt coolness among the burns as Harley began healing his wounds. "That feels good though." Harley smiled as she heard that from Evren.
"Hey, how are those new knives, Isobel? You figure out what they can do yet?"
"I love them!" was her immediate reply. "I don't know if they do anything yet. When I put magic into them, they just glow."
"Are you fighting with two weapons, or just one still?" Evren asked.
Embarrassed, Isobel looked away, "I've been trying two weapon style."
"How is that going?" he replied.
"Not so good, to be honest." She said with a down face. "Walter is working with me on it, but I can only focus on one hand at a time. When I remember and try to use my left hand more, I just use my left hand and my right hand just doesn't move."
Evren nodded, "I'll help you when I get out of here, but two weapon style takes some getting used to. Even though I can fight with two weapons, I still just prefer one because I can use my free hand for grappling. That probably won't be useful at all with the drakes and dragons we'll be fighting. I might fight with my dagger in my offhand to see if that works any but having different sized weapons can be a little tricky."
Evren turned his head so he could see her a little bit and said, "The trick to it is just keep practicing. Eventually you'll find yourself switching between the two automatically."
"Ok Mr. Evren, that's all I can do for today!" Harley said, then made a stern face, "Make sure you get plenty of rest Mr. Evren!"
"Yes ma'am." Evren replied.
Two days later, Evren was up and walking around when Harley and Isobel came by to check on him. He was writing the names of the towns on his map at the table at the time.
"Mr. Evren, you shouldn't be up!" Harley said with a start.
Evren looked up from the map and smiled, "But Doctor Harley, it doesn't really hurt much, and I got tired of lying down."
Isobel and Harley came around to look at Evren's back and were surprised. "Mr. Evren this looks better than it did yesterday."
"Well, that's thanks to your healing Harley." He replied.
Harley and Isobel looked at each other in confusion. Although she had healed him yesterday, it wasn't healed enough to make this sort of progress.
"Ah, thank you Mr. Evren." Harley replied absentmindedly. She traced her fingers along the scars on his back that had been barely recovered wounds yesterday.
"Mr. Evren, make sure you get plenty of rest today." Harley said after she healed him a little bit. She then took Isobel's arm and pulled her out of the house. "If we come back to see you like this again, we'll put you to be ourselves, Mr. Evren."
Evren nodded, "Yes ma'am. I'm just going to finish these notes on the map, and I'll head back to bed."
When Harley and Isobel were far enough away that they thought Evren wouldn't be able to hear him, Harley spoke up first. "Do you think it's because he's a puppet?"
"Are you sure he didn't heal himself? He is pretty good at magic." Isobel asked.
"He's said he can't heal without seeing the wound. I've tried to heal with my eyes closed after looking at the burns and I can't heal them." Harley replied.
"He doesn't have a mirror, does it?"
Harley looked back to the house, "I don't think so. I don't even think he knows what his face looks like."
"He's had to have seen what he looks like in water at least." Isobel said.
Harley shrugged and the two girls continued to chat with each other as they headed further into town.
Evren was looking at them through the window. He had used the 'clarity' spell to hear what they said because they were acting strange before they left and wanted to know why. He said to himself, "I'm healing fast, huh? I suppose that I should have guessed that since all those injuries I got in the dungeon healed quickly. Here, I thought I was just good at healing. What a crushing blow to my ego."
Evren put the maps away and said, "Well, I did say I would get some rest after I finished, but not when. Ha ha ha!"
"Oh, who am I kidding? I'm still exhausted. I'll eat something and then lay down some more." Evren started to think more about the continent that the Holy State Grandia was on, Seeclind. The holy state had created a law that no maps could be created of the continent and made possessing maps illegal for fear of losing in a war. The only maps that survived the purge were those that were taken out before they were made illegal.
The maps, though, were not that accurate. They only showed a general shape of the continent and rough estimates on the location of its cities and towns. None of them showed the relative size of the continent compared to the Aernide continent, so Evren wasn't even sure how long it would take to get there, nor to St. Gloria, the capital of the Holy State Grandia.
When Evren finished his lunch, he laid back down in bed, this time grabbing a book on glyphs he had only previously browsed through. From what he had read, enchantments couldn't be added after then initial enchantment because without a great knowledge of the glyphs, runes and enchantments involved, you wouldn't be able to find a way to properly insert it into the item. It'd be like trying to add more puzzle pieces after the puzzle was finished.
Evren was sure it would be a difficult task to fit more pieces into the puzzle, but nobody said anything about building another puzzle on top of the first one.
"I'm gonna get burned with this, I just know I am." Evren said as he started reading.