Ch 27

It was two more days before my master finally arrived to collect his earnings, hardly expecting to be collecting his slave as well. After one full day of practice my wounds had looked a week old. After the second day they had looked closer to two weeks old and then early in the third and final day I had with which to practice, it was as if something finally slotted into place within my mind and I did not have to struggle so much to draw the energy in or to hold the spell in place and keep if functioning.

This allowed me to be able to perform other tasks while keeping my focus on healing faster although doing so made me seem rather slow and incompetent because I had less than half of my focus left to work with. Another benefit that came from this sudden increase in comprehension of the function of energy gathering and the utilization of the spell also came with a significant increase in the rate at which it healed me. Whereas before I had been able to heal at a week in a day or a seven to one ratio for healing, now I seemed to be able to heal three times that much for a total of twenty one times my normal rate of healing whenever I had this spell active.

Thanks to this increase in my healing rate I was fully healed around noon on the fifth day after my fight with the cat-person who had managed to stab me and scratch me so badly on my arm and face with his claws. Now, thanks to the healing magick I would not even have a scar to show for it. I briefly wondered if Teka had used healing magick and that was why he was so rarely injured but after thinking about it and remembering the black eye he had carried around for days I realized that this was unlikely. Standing up I turned back to Grelf and said “My wounds are now fully healed. Does that mean I am finished practicing?” Grelf looked up from his tome with a startled look on his face because I had spoken to him for the first time since he had brought me the bread and cheese the day before.

He quickly stood up and came to inspect my wounds, obviously disbelieving that I had managed to learn the spell fully enough to heal such dire wounds in only three days, the two days I had rested before learning it notwithstanding. Upon reaching me he pulled up my leather tunic, exposing my lower half to the room as I did not have pants, much to the amusement of some of the other trainers who called taunts across the room. When he saw that my stab wound as well as the wounds on my face and arm were completely gone he let out a low whistle but then before he could continue talking we were interrupted by possibly the last person I wanted to see, Silvan.

Silvan came walking through the door to the training room, accompanied by the intelligent goblin who seemed to handle the books and operations here at the arena and he looked furious. The goblin walking a couple steps behind him winked at me discretely behind his back. Silvan had not stopped shouting at the goblin following him the entire way through the empty fighters’ quarters and this did not change when he entered the training room. “WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED THAT MY SLAVE LIVED! YOU JUST WANTED TO SPEND MY MONEY YOU STUPID FILTHY GOBLINS!” It seemed that Silvan thought of goblins much in the same way he thought of humans. “I COULD HAVE HAD THREE SILVER AND NOW I ONLY GET TWO AND FIFTY COPPERS YOU GREEDY THIEVING BASTARDS!”

The goblin following him was calmly explaining about how he was the one who had declared that the slave had died, and he couldn’t be bothered to come before now. He also explained that the slave that had arrived had only been instructed to deliver the message and leave rather than waiting for a response and so it was again his own fault. Silvan managed to keep shouting the entire time and so quite impressively managed to hear none of how his loss of a portion of his winnings was anything but a result of the greed of the goblins who ran the arena. Stomping into the room he grabbed hold of me by the arm that until recently had been injured and pulled me along behind him. I could probably have resisted but there was no point. He was still my master and could punish me however he saw fit, there could be no escape nor resistance. At least he did not seem to be blaming me for this.

As soon as we reached the outside of the arena my master finally fell silent with the door swinging shut behind him with a dull thud. He then looked at me closely under the full light of the noon sun, noticing I think, my distinct lack of injuries despite ten days of fighting in the arena. “I don’t know how you managed to survive the arena but don’t get your hopes up about staying alive. Teka never recovered, if I thought that you had any hope of taking his place I would put him down and be done with it but because you are a worthless piece of shit who got lucky I have to find a new fighter and this meager change isn’t going to cover the cost of a prime fighting slave.”

I looked at him with dread forming on my face. I don’t know what my master had planned for me, but I knew that I was not likely to enjoy it. Muttering to himself and rubbing his hands together as he laid plans to recoup his losses in Teka he began walking towards his home. As he walked it seemed to me that there was an extra spring in his step no matter what his words said. If I was any judge of why it would have to be because, as stated by Beetle when he delivered the message, he had expected me to die during my first couple of fights and thus even though he claimed affront at the loss of part of his winnings he still had gained far more coin than he thought he was going to. His plans for the future were looking up even if just a little. Unfortunately, Silvan’s futures looking bright did not have anything to do with my own futures, excepting where he would use me to build the future he had in his mind.

I think, in the end, it was a very good thing for me that Silvan couldn’t see the value of any human beyond disposable garbage unless they had paperwork proving their value like a high-priced fighting slave. Because of this, I was one day able to be free of him instead of spending the rest of my life fighting for him in the arena. Unfortunately, that day was not to come for some time yet.