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[Lesser Healing Potion] was a level six recipe, and provided instant healing. Perhaps worse, it could absorb food to provide nutrition. Every twenty points of nutrition increased the level by a rating. After two days of the doctor providing unreasonable deadlines and rates of return, he had the orderlies strap me to the central tent pole.

I resisted, of course. Win or lose, I usually gained an XP in Pankratios; they were that good at their jobs. Or maybe it wasn’t a job to them.

How does the old saying go? Find a job you love doing, and you’ll never work a day in your life. My orderlies may have had to strain to do their job, but they took GREAT satisfaction in forcing it upon me.

He sighed, looking at the logs of potions I had and mostly had not succeeded at. While this was going on, Tamm (short for Tamregin) strapped my right hand into a wooden device while Ligrid did the same with my left.

“The last time I was strapped into similar devices,” I said, “it was so that someone could isolate my fingers for torture.”

“No.” Doctor Mugryn said, “This crap right here is torture. It’s as though you aren’t trying to learn this process.”

“I am a Truthspeaker.” I said. “I literally CANNOT lie to you.”

“Yes.” he replied. “Your system is clearly broken. You honestly believe that the recipe is beyond you, and yet you keep trying to adjust the formula, trying to find what does and doesn’t work. Instead, you should just DO the formula. Again and again, until the repetition gains you skill and subskill ranks. Until you can do the formula in your sleep.”

.....

“Neither of us will be happy if I start brewing potions in my sleep.” I said.

“Ah.” he said, “A comedian. I suppose that’s a good start. Are we ready, Miss Tamm?”

She twisted my wrist, locking my right elbow with a quick pull. “Ready.”

“You may proceed.” he said.

“Torturing me will not... AARGH... not improve my performance.” I said.

“Ah, but it does improve mine.” he said. “So forgive me, if a minus one to your skill level is how I help you to better your skill level.”

“I have enough minuses as it is.” I said. “I guess another minus rank is just a number at this point.”

“That is not... Miss Tamm, why are you stopping?”

“Run out of fingernails, doctor. You want me to start on toes?”

“Show me.” he said. “You, Worm, have a phenomenal pain tolerance. Pity you can’t seem to grow useful skills at that rate. “Saline wash, Miss Tamm.”

“Yes, doctor.”

“Miss Ligrid, I think you should just pull all of his fingernails now, rather than slowly as we discussed.”

Saline means salt. Salt water, like sea water. My wounded flesh drank it in, even as the rest of my body began sweating brine.

“Ugh!” I said, mostly out of boredom.

“Yes, but it’s not quite how you’ve made me feel.” he said. “You understand how much these reagents you don’t care about cost?”

“Most of them were one copper coin on the open market. Some are two for a coin, some few require three coins to buy two.”

He shook his head. “Oh, it must have been a while since you’ve checked prices on any kind of market. Miss Ligrid?”

She deadpanned as though bored. “Swollen fingers on this hand as well.”

“Really? How incredibly curious. Well, I’ve no doubt that we’ll have time to examine human physiology. Tell me, Pale Worm, how do you feel?”

“Like you don’t really want me succeeding at making potions, but don’t want to just come right out and say it.” I said.

He scoffed. “You WILL tell us what you are doing differently.”

“I have been.” I said. “I’ve described all the mental and metaphysical steps, along with the dangers and risks when I know them.”

“Men,” he said, “use magic. Thrall beasts like you can’t actually understand what you’re doing. It’s not your fault, really. Loki just gave us better minds than you.”

“Oh, well praise Loki, then.” I said.

Tamm smacked me on the back of my head with the gag. “No cause for blasphemy from you.” she said.

“Aw.” said Ligrid. “Is Little Worm upset that we know he’s a beast and not a soldier?”

“I think you know at least three reasons I’m upset since my... transfer to this section.”

“Don’t let it bait you.” Doctor Murgyn said. “Just put it in its cage for the night.”

“And muzzle it?” Tamm asked.

“Of course, muzzle it.” Tamm said. “Don’t feed it another gag, though. We don’t want our prized animal put to death just yet. The fewer questions we raise, the longer we’ll get to keep him.”

“He’ll fight less if we neuter him.” Tamm said.

“I’ve explained this...” the doctor said.

“Hormones, body balance, magical link... I got it.” Tamm said. “I still think they fight less after their balls are removed.”

He looked at me and smiled. “While he cooperates, he gets to keep them. Only so long as he cooperates.”

“I don’t mind the Wrestler experience points.” Ligrid said. “He’s actually a challenge, sometimes.”

“I mind the experience points.” Tamm said. “Man-beast. Know when your betters have you beaten.”

I smiled. “I’ve always been bad at that.” I said.

But, partially due to [Anemia], I didn’t offer more than token resistance as they led me away.

There wasn’t enough room in my cage to stretch out. It was sized for a wolf, with thick steel bars as though to contain a bear. The lock securing the pin was custom-fitted to the bars of the cage and position of the pin. It didn’t spin (or otherwise move significantly) unless the key was applied.

And, I’d learned, my blood wasn’t quite as acidic as I’d led myself to believe.

[Doctor Murgyn counts as one soldier.]

It was a nightly thing, to list their value, always knowing that each of my captors was worth one.

So even if I could break free, even if I killed all three of them, I would still have ninety seven soldiers to go. There was no way I could fight that many soldiers, even one at a time. I’d have to cut through them like I was a plague.

A plague!

I had used my powers to stop plagues, and to spread them. I had access to diseases that nobody in this camp had been exposed to. Soldiers tending to have higher Might than most, diseases weren’t the most reliable way of doing more than a nuisance. But...

I could convert other mana types into Disease mana. Maybe not directly, and not without loss, but it could be done. I could do that. And, in my warded cell, with its thick bars?

When they moved me, I was muzzled. There was no invocation, no casting. Had I become that good with my Lifeshaper powers? Could I start a plague, without access to speak the words?

And perhaps more to the point, should I? Plagues weren’t exactly precision weapons. And, in most campsites, there was enough healing magic to keep all but the most virulent of plagues in their place.

Most. Campsites.

But this one needed to imprison me because I could make the woodsman’s healing potion? That was...

No, no. That couldn’t be right. In an army of this size, there should be ... one in a hundred? There should be eighty people capable of cranking out a healing potion a night.

And, impossible though it seems, if even half of the Kamajeen were actually divine casters...

No, I couldn’t afford tot think that way. I might be the sorriest member of the religions advocating vengeance, but I had the right...

Did I have the right? Wasn’t I just another slave, even to the Tidelands?

I rested my head against the bars of my cage.

[Infection: Red Flu acquired.] my System told me. I looked at my hands. My swollen hands, where the area exposed by my missing fingernails was turning black, the veins distended and clearly visible.

[System Health Module is only level one. To raise to level two for thirty development points...]

I sent.

I read. It was some pretty nasty stuff. It didn’t move quickly, but it didn’t need to. If I could spread this stuff...

Crap.

I looked at my array of defensive abilities, things I’d developed specifically to stop diseases. Some were Inherent, or always active.

The rest...

I sent.

It seemed like madness, but that cultivation method wasn’t the only one that gained XP that night.

For the curious, no, Tigrin’s death apparently didn’t count. No surprises there.