The Worst Healer
Copyright© 2026 by InSpite
Onslaught
“Stop being so fucking relaxed about this,” Sierra said firmly, “this isn’t something that happens. Ever.”
We’d gathered a little way from our guests with the excuse of discussing the mission but, in reality, I was being grilled over what had just happened to me.
“Ellie said when I saw someone use a Skill something would click into place...” I shrugged. “And that’s exactly what happened. I learned Regenerate.”
“She said when you saw an untrained Skill you had, you’d know how to use it.” Sierra kept her voice low but there was an urgency to her words. “You had three Skills. I saw it myself and you learned how to use them all.”
She shook her head. “Now I can see four when I Appraise you.”
“But all the training I’ve been doing...” I started to object.
“Is great for strength, stamina, mana, muscle memory ... stuff like that. Skills are fixed. I could appraise a baby and tell you what Class they’ll be when they’re older and what Skills they’ll have. I’ve never heard of that changing.”
“Oh,” I said quietly, “but I’m pretty sure I could cast Regenerate right now ... should I try?”
Sierra threw a furtive glance over towards our guests and pondered on the question for a long moment, before her curiosity won out. “Fuck it, I need to see if you can actually do it. We’ll worry about how later.”
That was the answer I wanted to hear. I’d felt an uncomfortable itch growing the longer I went without using this new power.
“Ow, Jesus...” Something sharp poked me in the back of the arm.
I turned to see Rhian with her dagger drawn and blood covering the tip. “What the hell Rhian?”
“You need something to heal,” she signed without any apology or further explanation.
I started to object or reprimand her, but that itch was growing, distracting me. This new power was burning a hole in me and I needed to let it out.
I started to reach for the cut near my elbow but ... that didn’t feel right. Instead, I let my hands fall to my sides as the words bubbled up and forced their way out. “Lyria, hear my command and do my bidding; mend this body and make it whole again: Regenerate.”
I felt the warmth, but this one was different. There was no wave of fatigue or press of exhaustion. What I felt was more like gentle exertion, as if I were currently jogging at a slow pace.
My examination of the feeling was interrupted.
“What is fucking wrong with you,” Sierra blurted out, though she seemed more amused than angry. “Lyria is the Goddess of light and healing. Healers are supposed to beg her aid, not command her to do their bidding.”
I shrugged, not really having an answer. “Something happened but...” I gestured to the cut on my elbow. “It’s not working.”
“Watch,” Rhian signed.
I looked again at the little scratch on my elbow. Was it ... smaller?
Sure enough, as I watched for a couple of minutes, the cut slowly closed, leaving only the dried blood around where it had been. “I’m like fucking Wolverine!”
Sierra sighed. “Enough with the weird references, you need to pay attention to this. Regenerate is powerful, but you need to know its limits.”
She waited until my attention was focused on her before she continued. “It’s far more powerful than Minor Cure, and where Minor Cure accelerates healing, Regenerate can mend things that don’t normally heal on their own, like scars or a blinded eye. With repeated casting, you can even regrow a lost limb.”
“But, and this is the important part, it’s next to useless in combat. It takes too long.” She gestured to our guests. “With a bad wound, your patient will likely bleed out before their wounds close.”
“So, it’s really not that great.” I tried to hide my disappointment. “It won’t keep someone alive, which is ... kinda my job.”
Sierra nodded. “If someone is dying, Minor Cure is still your go-to, but if someone gets hurt in the dungeon, we won’t have to hole up and wait three or four days for you to get them back on their feet. Regenerate will do the job overnight.”
“OK, so less hiding in basements. I can see the benefits of that.” That only left me with one nagging concern as I could still feel the slight but ongoing effort needed to sustain it. “So ... how do I turn it off? I can feel it slowly draining my mana.”
Sierra gave a quick shake of her head. “You wait for it to finish. It should be about six hours. It shouldn’t use much mana though, just a trickle.”
“Just don’t cast it on more than one person at once,” Sierra added. “Otherwise, the trickle turns into a flood.”
Rhian didn’t look comfortable with this whole situation. “None of this explains how he got it,” she signed. “We should keep this to ourselves for now.”
“Yeah, the Cypher is an issue too,” Sierra added. “If the wrong person heard that, we’d have more questions we don’t need to answer. But as we’re in the middle of nowhere, answers will have to wait.”
With my new ability being swept under the rug for now, she turned her attention to Rhian, passing her the Appraise ring. “Now, we need to know what we’re up against at that dungeon.”
While Rhian was scouting the enemy, Sierra grilled our guests on their Skills, strengths and combat experience.
By the time the Scout returned – after around thirty minutes – and relayed the enemy numbers, Sierra already had the start of a plan.
We gathered around the campfire, tucking into monkey skewers. I’m not sure what Butter had done to them, but they were the best food I’d had since the last time I ate at the Golden Standard.
Even Sierra was impressed.
“Food like this on the road?” she said after one bite. “We only skinned the monkey because Ellie set fire to most of our supplies last time she escaped ... I really wasn’t looking forward to eating them.”
“Honestly, Butter, I had you all wrong,” she admitted, “if you can fight half as well as you can cook, there might be a place for you in Red Briar.”
Butter actually blushed slightly. “A lovely offer, but days of walking at a time isn’t the life for me. Plus, this journey is already the longest I’ve gone sober since I was thirteen, with at least a couple of weeks still to go.”
“Right,” Sierra reluctantly concluded, putting down the finished skewer. “Jonas, are you healed enough to fight?”
“I’m good. By the time we’re there I’ll be fully healed,” Jonas said eagerly.
“So, the bad news first then: we’re outnumbered and outmatched.” Sierra paused before twisting the knife. “Our only B-Rank is in a bag over there, while they have a B-Rank Swordmaster.”
“Rhian counted nine kobolds with Classes. The Swordmaster is the biggest problem, but they also have six C-Ranks and two D-Ranks.”
Sierra held up a hand as our guests started muttering among themselves. “Two of the others present a problem. There are two Mages and one of them is C-Rank – he’ll be an issue.”
“The other issue is they have a Hunter...” Sierra pushed on with the bad news. “So however bad we thought the kobold traps would be, they’ll be much worse. He’s probably the reason they’ve been growing their numbers.”
“Those are the big problems, but with four frontline, two casters and three ranged, they have numbers and Ranks on us in every area.”
Jonas looked downhearted. “I’m sorry for dragging you all into this.”
“I release you all from any obligation to continue.” He looked around his friends despondently. “I’ll find a way on my own.”
“Yeah, nice try, but we’re getting that bounty,” Sierra said bluntly. “Now don’t interrupt, we’re getting to the good bit.”
“We have a few advantages.” Sierra nodded towards the Scout. “Rhian is the first. She’s still the sneakiest motherfucker on the battlefield and, if we’re very lucky, she can take down that Swordmaster with our opening shot.”
“Surely he’ll hear the Command and cut the arrow out of the air?” Sylvie objected.
“Normally, yes,” Sierra conceded. “But we picked up a Range Extend ring on our last mission ... we were planning on selling it, but here and now it’ll boost the range of Rhian’s Piercing Shot.”
“Our second advantage, despite her unsuitable footwear, is Skye.” Sierra gestured to the quiet Wind Mage, who looked a little startled to be a key part of the plan. “From what you’ve told me, I think Skye is the main reason you escaped before. She can’t beat their Mages for offence, but she can neutralise them as well as blocking arrows.”
Jonas nodded. “Without her Wind Wall, we wouldn’t have made it out.”
“Then,” Sierra concluded, “we’ll make them come to us and fight hand to hand. Rhian and Sylvie can shoot them on the way. Without the Swordmaster, Jonas, Butter, Carrie and I will deal with whatever makes it to us.”
Butter burst out laughing. “Typical Fencer ... your whole plan is about beating them sword to sword. It almost sounds like it could work, though.”
The dungeon entrance lay at the bottom of a large valley.
From halfway up the slope opposite, we crept forward until we were around six hundred paces from them.
Rhian signalled a halt. This was the closest she could get Jonas and me in our armour.
We had to leave Ellie – still in her sack – with Skye behind the rest of us. The Wind Mage had instructions to take her and run if things went bad.
Below us were around fifty kobolds. For the most part they were lounging around or gathered around cookfires.
They looked to be around four feet in height, with dark red scaly skin, long matching tails and wide mouths, giving them the appearance of walking lizards.
From this distance, I couldn’t tell the ones with Classes from the masses and, despite Sierra’s assurance that they weren’t a big threat, their numbers were enough to make me nervous.
With the danger of being spotted growing every moment, Rhian didn’t hesitate. Nocking an arrow, she drew back, whispered, “Barrage,” and fired it into the air.
As soon as the arrow left her bow and started its climb into the sky, she drew another, this time whispering, “Piercing Shot,” as she fired.
The shot streaked in a straight line into the mass of kobolds below, and a puff of dark smoke in their camp signalled a hit, even as Rhian fired a second Piercing Shot.
Before the kobolds in the camp could react, the Barrage landed in a rain of arrows that must have caused at least a dozen of our foes to disappear into smoke. With the camp in disarray, the second Piercing Shot landed, knocking off another of our targets.
I couldn’t make out any differences between the kobolds from this distance but trusted Rhian to pick the right targets. That meant the B-Rank Swordmaster and the C-Rank Mage.
It didn’t take the kobolds long to organise and form up behind their shields; however, I wasn’t prepared for how long their uphill march would take.
Rhian saved her last Piercing Shot of the day, but even with Swift Flight, she managed to kill a couple more and wound a handful. Once they were in range of Sylvie’s shots, she started firing too, taking down a couple more.
With our uphill advantage, it took a while longer for their own archers to get within bowshot, but as soon as they reached it, a number of them peeled away to draw their bows.
It was Skye’s turn, and she didn’t let us down. “Wind Wall,” she commanded as the arrows flew, clattering harmlessly into a shimmering barrier five paces in front of us.
“Counterspell.” Came her next Command, though in the commotion I didn’t see what she was disrupting.
The kobolds wavered, their march slowing until a large figure at the front rallied them with an unintelligible cry.
“Alright, the Swordmaster and one of the Mages are down, along with half their numbers,” Sierra called out. “Good work, Rhian, Sylvie and Skye. Keep them from getting around us and keep that barrier up. We’ll do the rest.”
Butter and Sierra stepped forward, taking the centre. I took up position next to Butter on the left flank while Jonas took the right next to Sierra. Rhian and Sylvie fell back either side of Skye where they could use the slope to fire over our heads.
Arrows picked off three more on the final climb, but as they approached, their front line fell back, including the larger one who’d rallied them before. Instead, the bulk of their forces approached the Wind Wall while the most dangerous looking kobolds slipped to the rear.
“They want to use their numbers,” Sierra called out as the first kobolds pushed their way through the wall. “They’ll swarm us and then the ones with Classes will try to pick us off while we’re fighting this fodder ... Butter, you’re up. The rest of you, get ready to cover him.”
Butter let out a loud laugh, startling me almost as much as it did the kobolds.
While they were still eyeing him up uncertainly, he stopped laughing abruptly and growled out a Command through gritted teeth: “Onslaught.”
Hammer swinging, he leapt into the middle of them, crushing their front line with one sweep of the ridiculously oversized hammer and then catching another on the backswing.
With their charge in disarray, the kobolds faltered again.
One hapless kobold threw up its shield as he swung overhead, but nothing could stop the weight of that hammer from smashing into the ground, leaving only trails of mist and splinters of the crushed shield.
The rest of us waited well out of the hammer’s range until, after five or six massive swings, the huge Brawler finally winded himself.
We leapt forwards as Butter gasped for air, holding himself upright with the hammer’s haft.
Sierra jumped into the breach he’d smashed in their lines while Jonas and I closed ranks, covering Butter from either side with our shields.
With our last ace played, the dirty work started.
I blocked a spear thrust with my shield and then smashed my hammer into the back of another kobold’s head as he tried to slip past me to get to our back line.
A little off-balance from my opportunistic attack, I barely managed to swing back in time to meet two more attacks, sweeping one spear thrust aside with the hammer while the second glanced off the shield.
An arrow sprang from the neck of one of my attackers, one of our archers finding a shot while its attention was on me.
I squared up with the last kobold, but something whipped past me – a figure running fast and low towards Skye and our archers.
It was gone before I could react, but in the split-second my gaze was diverted, another kobold rushed me, a sword in each hand.
“Double Strike,” it growled as I managed to catch one of the swords with my shield. The other, swinging low, carved a bloody rent in the back of my thigh. The momentum of the low attack swept my leg from under me and sent me crashing to the floor.
The creature hunched low to the ground. “Pounce,” leapt with incredible speed, the tip of one sword aimed directly at my face.