Chapter 7: Peftís’ Palace of Rejuvenation

The archlibrarian Immith Murnyethera confidently strolled the street of Niliphy, her mammoth tusk heels clicking on the stone pavement rhythmically, heading to the familiar Elder Birch market. She was wearing her usual attire: a white and gold robe with a web-like pattern covering her two remarkable assets, she wore multiple necklaces and trinkets, undoubtedly showing her financial prowess and another odd piece of equipment currently on her was a thin silver chain wrapped around her hips to secure a leatherback tome on her side. Immith was holding a wooden crate containing multiple scrolls of paper, carefully weaving herself around the crowds as she approached the giant birch tree in the middle of the market.

And happily prancing besides her was a girl half her height. But be not deceived, for she was not a child in any capacity. She belonged to a race called halfling, a stout and small race with prideful individuals who excel in the art of cooking, moving stealthily and of course, poetry. Her hair and eyes were hazelnut-colored and she was donning a well made outfit closely resembling a silky battle gown. On her side strapped a long dirk, but for her small stature, it was appropriate as a longsword, in scabbard and all.

Not too long ago, she was still an ethereal being, a will-o'-wisp as named by the humans or "uskeche ivae" - ghostly light as the elves branded the undead creatures. She had wandered the land and feasted on the corpses of animals for sustenance before meeting her savior and companion. Then she finally met Immith and got her halfling form back despite still being a wisp by nature.

The pair traversed the huddle of commoners of the morning market to reach a long and vacated alley, casted aside from the busy city, where Immith flicked her hand and summoned an ivory door out of thin air and both entered the magical mansion. 

"Fuaaa… finally back home!" Lissa chirped before rushing inside the porch and casted her body onto a pile of pillows.

The archlibrarian smiled and deposited her scrolls onto a shelf and picked up the porcelain teapot to pour herself a cup of tea - still perfectly lukewarm, of course, for it was an enchanted pot.

"Now now, Lissa… You can rest but for a moment, alright dear? We still have plenty of work to do."

"Mmm… did your contact send any information back yet? It's been a week." Lissa replied, her face still buried in the soft feather pillow.

"Fortunately, yes. He came by earlier this morning, when you were still asleep. I haven't read it yet, I want you to read it so that you could report back to your Charlston guy." The mage said, producing a sealed envelope from her baggy sleeve. "Just in case."

"Aww you know that I trust you fully, right?"

"Well… I'm flattered, Lissa dear, but that is not the right attitude to have if you want to live in this world. I mean… I hope you of all people would understand this best, considering your past, but please excuse me if I offended you by mentioning that."

"Oh no, it's okay, master Immith. But I'm truly lucky to run into Charlie and his party and you. I promise I'll be cautious" Lissa pounced from her resting spot and casually climbed onto a stool "Well then, let us get to work."

The halfling took the envelope and cooly guided the letter opener through the crease and retrieved the letter inside. She looked at the archlibrarian in a gesture of anxiety before whispered "Here's go nothing…"

"Dear Immith. It has been a dangerous journey for me to discover what you demanded of me. But I can not keep the information to myself any longer, the boon you described with much secrecy even to me did exist. It is one of the five original boons, the so-called Calamity Apparatuses, according to the Lost Legends written by Faunathor of Mosia…" "What in the world? C-Calamity Apparatuses? That doesn't sound good at all…"

"Do continue, Lissa." 

Immith closed her eyes as if she was in deep thought, her hands reached for her temples and a wrinkle appeared on her nose.

"It is called The Scroll of Angavir, alongside four other boons: Wings of Xanthufar, Eaton's Bulwark, Doombringer's Cestus and Bordill Thousand-kill's Halberd. Faunathor mentioned that an oracle in Joheungdopo has foreseen the return of these Calamity Apparatuses in the near myria-annum and warned, and I quote, 'The Demon Lord shall rise once more, reigning fear all over Lumea like the days of yore when the Calamity Apparatuses found their rightful owners.'. I hope this information is of help to you. Yours sincerely, Moth."

Silence befell the library.

Neither Immith nor Lissa had expected that revelation when they first contacted a Scholar of Frasi - one of Immith's colleagues back in her days, to ask for information about the boon that Charlie possessed.

Lissa carefully tucked the letter back inside the envelope and hopped off the stool before pushing it to the bookshelf directly behind the archlibrarian. She climbed up and stared at the leather scroll held inside a glass display: the Scroll of Angavir - the scroll currently displaying Charleston's physical and mental status.

And…

"!!!"

"Uhh… Immith?" Lissa raised her soft voice "Can you tell me again, what does the HP mean?"

"It's Charlie's life force, as in the amount of damage he could take before being knocked out or you know… dies."

"Which means that if it reaches zero, he might perish?"

"Precisely."

"Sangeros Dracu!" Lissa squealed a swear in Halfling before frantically jumping down and smacking Immith's back repeatedly "He's dying! His HP is dropping! What's happening?"

"What?" Immith blurted out a silly sound but she immediately stood up and peered into the scroll "Oh no, that's no good… we have to get to him!"

Contrary to her usual tardy appearance, Immith was one of the highest ranking magus in the continent, so it was not unexpected of her to act as one. She led Lissa by the arm to the grassy plain before the mansion as she threw a pouch of gold coins onto the field. 

Isnu Val Fus Baratalcu Hex Vis Ro Fohru 

As Immith spoke the arcane words, the gold pouch slowly levitated before burning up into ashes. As the last molecule of tinder disappeared, a magic circle came into existence, charted on the grass and glowed with bright golden light.

"His cloak pin, Lissa, offers it to the spell!" She commanded

And as Lissa took the leaf pin off her belt and chucked it, the light brighten and arcane energy swarmed them both before the little halfling felt her body lighten as if she was falling from the sky. 

When the light dissipated, Lissa saw herself standing in a dark and dank hallway, the air was hot and filled with a sulfur smell. On the ground next to her was a motionless body, but it only took her a second to recognize his green cloak. It was Charlie - her savior. Next to him were his party members - the two humans and an elf, all battered and damaged.The human cleric was unconscious and the other two suffered multiple bruises and cuts and burns. The elf looked at Lissa worriedly as she raised the longbow, ready to use it as a bludgeoning weapon - her quiver had run dry.

"Elluin! Harrison! It's me, Lissa! We're here to help!" Lissa spoke, drawing her blade and stood before the downed adventurers. However, she quickly hesitated as the stone golem, imposing and enormous, took a step towards the unexpected guests.

But the archlibrarian did not wait long before she unleashed her rage onto the encroaching stone golem. She crushed a silvery lodestone with ease on her left hand and casted a handful of fine dust with the right before whispering a single arcane word and pointed towards the construct. The golem took three steps forward as a sickly green ray of light emitted from her fingertip and slammed onto its torso, taking effect immediately. The smooth, undamaged stone surface of its chest instantly crumbled and turned to dust, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of its upper body. The golem, unable to feel pain, attempted to launch a punch in retaliation as the mage flung open her magic tome and flicked her finger upward. Its punch found no purchase, for it found gravity suddenly reversed and its whole body slammed onto the ceiling of the dungeon. 

No words were exchanged between the rest of the party - for how could they? They spent everything they had left to try and barely survive against a foe they could not even damage. And then a magic caster just teleported before them like an intervention of the divine and casually casted multiple legendary spells. 

Elluin the elf archer recognized the disintegrating ray the arcane magus had just casted - the spell was the stuff of legend, it was the seemingly exaggerated details in stories about a folk hero who defeated evil. She had heard many times about an archwizard who could turn anything to dust with but a flick of the finger - and now that person might be standing tall before her.

"Puny pile of rock." Immith hissed as she flipped the tome and drew an octagram - an eight-pointed star before her as a breathtaking wave of arcane energy coalesced into seven different colors in the star. Then the archlibrarian crossed her arms and forcefully flung them open, dispersing an intense slash of red pure heat as it heated the golem into a glowing mass. And before it could struggle against the nigh impossible-to-resist gravitational spell, another wave of freezing cold snap slammed into its already red hot body.

A loud explosion bursted out from the golem body as the extreme temperature change caused its structure to weaken, and as Immith's gravitational magic wore out, the construct's body crumbled to dust and littered the ground. It's red eyeball - miraculously intact, fell down into the open palm of the magus as she turned to a scared Lissa.

"That thing was the place of power of the dungeon, no surprise when it could easily down four of you silver adventurers. What fools, did the guild not check the corruption aura these corridors emitted before sending you all to your death? A mithril party would barely get through…" - Immith frowned deeply, staring the struggling elf into her eyes. Elluin held onto Harrison's shoulder to prop herself up and take a good look at her savior - A dashingly beautiful and strong, almost divine, magic caster. And next to her was a halfling who proclaimed to be Lissa - Charlie's will-o'-wisp companion, in the flesh.

"If it was not for this fool's boon, you would all be rotting in this damned dungeon." - She lightly nudged Charlie's leg. And as if it reminded Elluin of the ranger's grave injuries, the elf cried out:

"Please take him back immediately, he needs medical attention, now!"

But the archlibrarian just tilted her head in a silly gesture and looked at the elf archer.

Almost as if she was surprised by the elf's demeanor.

"Naturally." Immith smiled.

===

Wh-Where am I? 

What is this place?

Charlie slowly rose, very slowly due to a sudden wave of drowsiness. He clutched his chest with his right hand - it was hard to breathe.

But then he realized something was amiss.

He remembered he was fighting a giant stone golem in a narrow hallway before ultimately failing and got knocked out by the construct. 

How long was it ago? He didn't know.

But his whole body was groaning in pain.

And he was not in the dungeon any more.

Am I dead?

Charlie glanced around him and instinctively pressed his legs down onto the ground to anchor his body down  - he was lying at a clifftop so high up that he could see clouds, or was it fog, slowly floating under the cliffside. If his body had turned slightly, he would have ended up falling off.

Behind him was a giant trunk of a beautiful tree. It must have been ancient, for its trunk was enormous and covered in hanging moss and fungus and lichens. And it was in full bloom, a gorgeous sight of giant branches with thousands of drooping pure white flowers. 

For some reason unbeknownst to Charlie, he thought about the strange quote found at the end of his Stat Scroll.

O great Sage, do travel to the end of the world, on the Northern Grand mountain range , I will see you again by the white wisteria. 

Is this the Northern Grand mountain range?... He held in his breath as he reached out towards the tree. And as his finger came into contact with the scabrous surface of the trunk, an intense pain pierced his head. 

And a loud voice, panic-stricken and almost desperate, spoke out to him as Charlie recoiled from the sudden burst of spasm.

"Please hurry, O' Sage of Life and Death. The damned are fast approaching, they who shall wreak havoc over the land, the Calamitous Horsemen. For I have grown weaker, day by day, and my barrier thinner as our forest burns without end."

The feminine voice echoed in his mind when he shut his eyes tight, reeling in pain. And before he knew it, the pain dissipated and he was no longer standing on a cliff but restrained on a bed, inside a brightly lit room with multiple visible vials of unknown substances leading into his arms with tubing and needles, which almost reminded him of his old world.

Did I really die and return to my world? Am I in a hospital?

But alas, his thought was quickly snuffed away like a candle in the wind as an audible gasp took his attention. A priestess in black robe saw him regain consciousness and loudly announced to someone outside of the room with a language he understood but could not spell out its letters - elvish.

He did not escape the fantasy world. Yet.

At this point, Charlie's sensation had finally come back to him as he felt extremely exhausted and claustrophobic due to the leather belt restraint on his torso and arms, so he leaned back into the soft pillows and focused on breathing.

Even breathing was difficult, he felt as if his throat was dry as a desert and somehow he had sand stuck in his lungs, for it hurted whenever he tried to breathe a lungful.

Footsteps.

Yellings.

And finally, an eccentric man (according to Charlie at the time) entered the room, casually and almost intentionally slowly checked each of the glass vials before taking a glance at Charlie. 

"The name is Peftís. Welcome back to the living world, Charleston." He spoke in common.

Peftís was wearing a black headwear that looked like a piece of cloth that had been wrapped around his head, obscuring his whole face except for the emerald green eyes and long, pointy elven ears. (Later on Charlie found out the headwear was called tagelmust.) His voice was different from most elves Charlie had met before - it was coarse and strong yet it seemed to lack the beautiful ring to it that most elves had.

"I am sure you have plenty of questions, but my time should be spent elsewhere, not here babysitting a foolish adventurer that caught lady Murnyethera's blue eyes. Feel free to ask sister Frieda for more information. By the way… you better recover fast, for Lady Murnyethera might need your assistance soon on whatever the hell you pulled her into."

What a weird elf… Why was he so mad at me?

"Hi, mister adventurer!" The elf priestess set down a wooden tray beside Charlie's bed and smiled "How are you feeling?"

"Good… I guess? It hurts when I try to breathe too deep."

"That's to be expected, your windpipe and your esophagus were badly burned when you arrived here ten days ago."

"Ten days!? I've been out cold for ten whole days?"

The elf priestess smiled with a sympathetic look on her face.

"When lady Murnyethera teleported your entire party here, you were on the verge of death. Your entire rib cage was smashed to bits, out of 24 ribs, 22 of your ribs turned to pieces. The last two, however, pierced your lungs. That was why lady Murnyethera did not use any healing potion on you immediately. You suffered internal bleeding, your heart was badly bruised and your spleen was damaged almost beyond saving."

"I… I must express that it has been a miracle that you could make a full recovery. Doctor Peftís performed surgery on you personally, reformed your ribs with mending, healed your damaged organs and monitored your healing process daily. He is a great doctor, he really is, and he lives up to his title of Head Healer of the Gawon House of Medical. However, your case was one of the most severe cases in recent years. If not for lady Murnyethera's plea, he would not have taken on your case and simply… well you know."

Charlie took a good, silent minute to reflect on what sister Frieda revealed to him. He realized that although he had been an adventurer for more than six months, with hundreds if not thousands of monsters slain by his own hands, he was still a human being. One wrong step might be the end of him.

What if the fabled revival ritual that every apprentice hopes to be able to perform one day would not work on him - someone who came from another world?

Why was he fighting monsters? His goal from the very beginning was to get experienced and strong enough to fend for himself in this fantasy world. Well, Charlie was surely fine on his own now. He had become accustomed to what the new world had to offer, and he could easily retire from adventuring and live the rest of his days just by spending the amount of money he had amassed.

But then, once again, he cherished the time he spent with his fellow adventurers, his back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder friends who would sacrifice themselves for any of the party members. 

He enjoyed discovering many long lost ruins or helping to protect a vulnerable village from a monster lair. It's the period of time when he had done his job and stood back to take in what he had unearthed or who he had saved - it's those times when he thought it was all worth it. Maybe it's because adventuring was the essence of freedom in this world, one could travel anywhere and do whatever one wants, slaying monsters and plundering for treasures to fund their trip. Maybe Charlie was sick of the restrictive and prison-like lifestyle he led in his old world.

"Would you… happen to know how my fellow party members fare? Where are they now?"

"Oh, your friends stayed here in the Palace of Rejuvenation for a few days before leaving with lady Muryethera. They're all fine, so don't be worried, okay? The elf archer said that they were running some tasks for lady Murnyethera and they would come back soon."

"Mmm… I'm glad to hear that. I thought… we would perish in that dungeon, really. I have never felt… powerless before an opponent like that. We tried our best, but we could not even scratch the damn golem that was pressing us."

"Don't torment yourself over such things." The elf priestess smiled, this time a beautiful full smile "Many have come before you, and many will follow the path you took. As an adventurer, a pioneer who discovers unknown land and faces all kinds of danger, you will continue to grow. I can promise you that. I… lady Murnyethera and doctor Peftís used to be adventurers like you, and they were the best of the best, or so I'm told. But after an adventure gone bad, they have decided to split ways and lay low. But that's how it is, one after another, adventurers are a different kind of breed. They keep coming and coming, they keep trying their best doing what they love. So don't lose hope, mister adventurer, and trust the yearning of your heart."

"Oh wow… You… you give great advice, miss Frieda. Th-Thank you. Are you… familiar, you know, experienced with adventuring by chance?"

"Of course not." Frieda smiled and closed her eyes "I'm but an ordinary nurse. Now, can I interest you in some dandelion root tea?"