The Worst Healer
Copyright© 2026 by InSpite
Familiar Problems
I think a part of me had assumed that all clans were like Red Briar.
A group, closer to family than friends, who stuck together and looked out for each other. Sure, there would be disagreements, but nothing that would break that closeness.
Sunrise reminded me that some families could be dysfunctional, missing the bonds that made them a comfort and source of strength.
Thalia had grabbed her portion of the meat I’d shared – Joy’s too after constant moaning – and, after gorging, had promptly rolled up in a corner and gone to sleep without a word.
Dinner had mostly passed in silence. I’d filled them in on our journey here – though I left out what we’d been through before taking the mission – and what we’d encountered outside the dungeon. It was a tale that seemed to lower their spirits, and they hadn’t offered much conversation in return.
They seemed to barely speak to each other too, which made me wonder how close they were to breaking point after weeks of being trapped down here.
As soon as the food was done, they drifted apart and I resolved to get some information out of them.
Ellie and Megan had spent dinner both throwing furtive glances when they thought the other wasn’t looking. If they were teenagers, I’d have guessed it was a crush, but clearly there was something else going on there.
I put that on a backburner for now, and with Joy quietly meditating, approached Devon as the Fighter started sharpening his spear.
He gave a nod, but no other greeting as I sat down next to him.
“The rescue mission isn’t what you’d been hoping for, is it?” I quietly asked.
He gave a bitter chuckle as he stopped sharpening long enough to meet my gaze.
“In truth, I didn’t expect a rescue mission at all.” He shrugged. “It gave me hope for a moment or two but...”
He blew out a breath before fixing his gaze on me. “This isn’t your fault, but it sounds like this rescue mission is going to kill us all.”
Sierra jerked awake.
Something was different.
It took her a moment to pinpoint what it was. Jerking awake should have sent stabbing pains down her side. The constant dull ache in her jaw was missing too.
She looked around to see Sylvie on guard and the others all asleep.
Feeling suspiciously rested, she crept over to the Ranger to avoid waking the others.
“Why do I feel like I’ve been healed? I was only supposed to get a couple of hours,” she whispered.
“Jonas woke up and insisted on healing you,” Sylvie whispered back. “Some people are just stubborn like that.”
Sierra narrowed her eyes a little but ignored the subtle dig. “And I suppose he passed out again right after?”
Sylvie nodded. “Rhian woke up to scout the area. When she got back, we insisted she grab some more sleep too ... we were all exhausted.”
The news of more lost time frustrated Sierra, but she understood. They’d reached the point where it couldn’t be helped.
Instead, she focused on what came next. “What did she find?”
“A few hobgoblins, a group of skeletons ... nothing we need to worry about on this floor. But there’s only one set of stairs down...”
“The ogres she smelled before?” Sierra prompted.
“She’s sure they’re at the bottom of the stairs. She can smell three and they’re not alone.”
“What else?”
Sylvie paused. “Rhian doesn’t know ... she was exhausted and writing things out in the dirt on the floor, so there might be more to it, but she said it smelled ... wrong.”
“Well shit, that’s not ominous at all, is it?” Sierra chuckled.
Sylvie closed her eyes for a moment and let out a quiet chuckle, allowing Sierra to break the tension.
“There’s not a lot of things that Rhian can’t identify by smell,” Sierra said, “but if it eases your mind, she said Carrie smelled ‘wrong’ the first time she came across him too.”
“It has been weighing on my mind,” Sylvie admitted. “Because whatever it is, you’re not going to stop, are you? You, Rhian and Jonas will push on, no matter what we’re up against.”
Sierra nodded, not needing a moment to think about the answer. “Once everyone is rested, we’ll move. We can’t take three ogres, but they’re dumb and slow. We’ll sneak past, distract them or just rush.”
“And the other creature?”
Sierra thought it over for a moment. “We try sneaking first. If that doesn’t work, we try to kill it, and if all else fails we run. We stay flexible and take advantage of the ogres being slow.”
Devon handed me the small mirror, cautioning me again not to look directly around the corner.
He’d led me to a corner just a few hundred paces from where Sunrise had camped to show me what had them trapped here.
A fetid smell filled the whole area, a rotten combination of feet and turned milk.
I squatted by the corner, my back against the blockwork wall as I cautiously held the mirror out. I angled it carefully, just enough that I could see a large cavern, dimly lit with a blue phosphorescent glow from some type of mushroom.
Towards the back of the room, a pillar rose from floor to ceiling, a spiral staircase circling it and leading to a floor above.
Arranged in a rough circle around the pillar were three lumpy grey forms. It was hard to judge their size by the reflection, but they looked huge even from this distance.
I squinted, trying to make out more detail in the dim light. They seemed to be moving slightly ... it took me a while to realise I was looking at the sleeping forms of three colossal creatures. By my best guess, they’d be around twenty feet tall if they’d stood.
“Three really big ... things?” I whispered to Devon.
“Ogres! You don’t know what an ogre is?” Devon looked a little put out by my failure to recognise them. “Keep looking through.”
I moved the mirror side to side, sweeping the area for anything else.
I was about to give up when something caught my eye. One of the ogres was lying flat on its back with one knee in the air. Its foot was flat on the floor with the knee bent at ninety degrees.
With the leg forming an arch, something crouched underneath it.
I jerked the mirror back, as the first thing I noticed about the creature was that it was staring right at me.
“It’s OK, he won’t move,” Devon reassured me, though I couldn’t help noticing that he gripped the spear tightly and stood in a ready crouch.
Timidly, I poked the mirror out again and took a better look at the creature.
It was built like a medium-sized dog, with dark red-brown leathery skin instead of fur, but even a cursory glance was enough to let me know this wasn’t a lost labrador.
One large eye dominated the front of its face above a shortened snout, while tentacles sprang from its sides at regular intervals. Each tentacle ended in a smaller eye that waved about as if constantly scanning its surroundings.
“What the fuck is that?” The words slipped out, louder than I intended.
For a moment I tensed, ready to sprint away if the creatures stirred, but no reaction came from the eyeball-dog-thing or its large friends.
“That’s a watcher,” Devon whispered. “It’s the target of our mission and it’s the reason we’re stuck here. A watcher, guarded by ogres ... it’s a nightmare.”
“So ... ogres are bad,” I concluded. “And watchers are bad, but together they’re really bad?”
There was a moment of silence after my question, just enough time for me to realise that this was the sort of thing I should know.
I missed Rhian and her helpful context for conversations like this.
Devon pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a sigh.
“Ogres are very dangerous, they’re large and extremely tough. They’re almost impossible for a melee fighter to kill ... unless they’re S-Rank,” he explained.
“Watchers are fairly weak, but they can stun people and their nastiest ability is nullifying Skills and magic around them. They’re essentially Mage killers, though they don’t pose a big problem for most fighting classes.”
I nodded, following so far as he continued.
“Normally, for an ogre you’d blast it with high-level magic, or sneak past it ... they’re pretty dumb. Watchers – as the name implies – are impossible to sneak by, and they stop magic.”
Devon’s patience with explaining dungeon basics to his supposed rescuers appeared to be close to running out. “We can’t get to the watcher because of the ogres, and we can’t kill the ogres because of the watcher. We’ve tried distractions, luring them away and just waiting for them to leave ... but that watcher knows why we’re here.”
“I don’t know how it got those ogres to follow it, but ... every time it sees Megan, it stuns her.”
He threw a quick glance towards the direction we’d come from. “I think it wants to Claim a spellcasting Class. Those ogres won’t fit up the stairs, but with her earth magic ... it might be possible.” He shrugged. “If they killed us, three ogres and a watcher, all with Classes ... they’d kill hundreds before they were stopped.”
“And to top it off.” He glared at me as he spoke. “Sooner or later, our ‘rescue party’ is going to come stumbling down the stairs and give them what they’ve been waiting for. I can’t wait to face a Paladin ogre.”
“Rhian will smell the ogres,” I reassured him. “She can track most creatures by smell, and even I can smell those things.”
“So, she’ll try to sneak past, but the watcher will spot her, like it spotted Thalia,” Devon responded. “On the plus side, once they all have Classes, they won’t need to hang around anymore. Maybe they’ll leave ... or we can sneak past in the commotion.”
“Joy’s brother is going to be there,” I pointed out. “You think she’s going to let him die as a distraction.”
“You’re right, I misspoke.” He started walking back towards the camp, stopping to look over his shoulder for a moment. “I meant to say ... Maybe I can sneak past in the commotion.”
Devon didn’t wait for me, strolling away as I crouched, stunned by his words, against the wall, the mirror still in my hand.
His disregard for the rest of his party and the rescue mission that had come to help him jarred with how I felt about Red Briar.
I’d presumed that bond, that sense of family, was how clans worked.
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