5 Prognosis (1/2)

My first foray into the forest was off to a fascinating and fast-paced start. I had dashed into the dense growth and with each passing second, I was speedily striding towards the trapped goblin I had detected earlier. My staff was in my hand and magic on my mind even as I was surrounded by great natural beauty.

The forest was incredibly different from the town I was just in. It was a wild, unclaimed, and fully natural area. The trees that surrounded me on all sides were taller than any building I had seen in Comillas, and with just a glance I had a feeling that much of the wood that was used in the construction of the homes in Comillas came from a place with less dense trees than this area.

As I moved through the forest I was able to see and hear a range of sights and sounds. I could see trees, bushes, and small animals flitting too and from their homes. I could hear the gentle swaying of leaves as they drifted down from trees and the soft pitter-patter of tiny feet on soft grass.

As I dove deeper and deeper into the forest I relied on tremorsense to guide me. Striding with confidence felt right, it felt natural for me to move with purpose. Nearly a minute into my trip I received a message from that little voice in my head that told me about the world and appeared to know more about me than I did.

[This sure is a pretty forest! We quite like it. Lots of animals, trees, and plants. A perfect place for a druid.] The thing told me, and as far as I could tell it was being sincere. It seemed to truly like the forest I found myself in. And so did I. That said, I knew I would probably like it even more once the situation with the goblin was resolved and I could appreciate it fully. A second later the voice spoke again.

[Anyways, do us a favor. We've unlocked your spells, but none of us can see them until you open your spell list for the first time. In a second, when we're done talking, you should see a book-like icon pop into being in your mind's eye. That's your grimoire and you can use it to access your spells. Mentally click it when you see it so we can all glance at what spells you can already use.] The strange voice told me.

This time when my vision changed it wasn't after I blinked. It happened the moment after the system stopped talking. It also wasn't at all like what happened with tremorsense. Instead of a painful ordeal, it was more like a casual awakening. One moment the top-right corner of my mind's eye was empty and the next there was a symbol of a black book there.

Upon noticing the thing I smiled and did as I was asked, tapping it with a single mental gesture. And then another system-like bracket-box filled with text appeared unintrusively in my mind's eye, just like when I clicked on the goblin while testing tremorsense.

[Accessing grimoire... Loading spells... Preparing shortened descriptions...

Base spells provided by your influence over the subdomain of healing:

Restore Health (Heal a target for 15 points of hit point damage)

Abate Sickness (Lessens the symptoms of a disease, providing the affiliated target with immediate relief, including lesser symptoms of magical diseases)

Cure Disease (Immediately cures any mundane, as in non-magical, disease in a target. Single target per cast.)

Restore Stamina (Provides the target(s) with 100 points of stamina. If the target's stamina points would go beyond their maximum as a result of the spell the excessive stamina points are returned to the caster in the form of magical energy to help offset the magical costs of the spell.)

Numb Pain (Dampens a target's sense of pain, allowing them to endure blows without the negative effects of pain on the body)

Cure Condition (A condition affecting a target is ended)

Prognosis (This spell scans and reveals a target's condition, it identifies hit points, stamina points, and magical energy, as well as letting the caster know what, if any, non-magical diseases the target is suffering from and their current mental state. It also provides caster with recommendations on treating them.)

Subdomain Notes:

1: Normally healing spells wouldn't work on machines, spirits, constructs, or plants unless they state otherwise. However, yours do. This is because you are a deity of healing.

2: You also have no cooldown on healing spells and can cast them on people no matter their location, provided you know the target you intend to heal and the target consents to being healed. If you increase your influence over the subdomain of healing then you'll be able to influence people you've healed, though at the moment you cannot do that.

3: You can cast this spell through someone else if they permit you to. This means that if someone prays for healing you can heal them or others they know as if you knew them. Those who pray for healing will receive a notification the first time you attempt to heal them, and if they allow the healing they are opening themselves up to future heals.

4: These healing spells may sound unimpressive but healing magic is the third rarest basic school of magic and the ability to heal someone unseen from even thousands of miles away is literally miraculous.

Druid Spells:

Embers (Produces a small sphere of flame that can be used to illuminate your surroundings or as a ranged attack on enemies)

Mote (Produces a tiny triangle of elemental energy that can be used to attack an enemy from a distance, sample elements include: electricity, ice, earth, fire)

Boulder Bash (Hurls a medium-sized boulder at the enemy)

Chaos Burst (Fires a ray at the enemy that displaces them, sending them a few meters away in a random direction)

Tangle (Vines grow out of the ground that entangles an enemy and prevents them from moving)

Beast Bond** (Creates a temporary bond with a beast that allies it with you and enables mind to mind communication. This spell can be targeted to create a bond between a targeted humanoid and a targetted beast.)

Create food** (Creates real, healthy food. Due to influence from your domains and subdomains, any food you create will be fruits and vegetables but anyone who eats something you created gets a boost to their stats and it meets all of their nutritional needs no matter their normal diet. This food begins to go bad if uneaten in two hours.)

Animal Chatter** (Enables a target to understand and speak with animals)

Notes:

1: You unlock more druid spells as you gain experience and as you practice your magic. Legendary magic refers to lost spells that are tied to domains and subdomains.

2: If you reach the 30th level of the druid class before unlocking all druid spells you automatically unlock what non-legendary spells the class possesses that you didn't already have unlocked.

3: Several more spells, legendary and non-legendary alike, are hidden away while you are in tutorial mode, including healing spells. These will be made useable by you in time, especially once your magic domain and healing subdomain abilities are unlocked. The spells you currently have access to are a small sampling of useful ones that allow you to begin to understand your own magical abilities.

4: To cast a targeted spell, focus on the spell itself, and select a target in your mind. Visualize the spell pouring out of you and into, at, or onto the target and then will the spell out of you once you feel it's ready. To cast a non-targeted spell just focus on the spell in your mind and then will it outward.

5: Being a deity of agriculture gives you an extremely handy power. Food created by you, including when something eats a creature or plant you influenced the growth of, results in the devourer unknowingly opening themselves up to your influence and becoming more easy for you to control or bring to worship you.

6: Legendary spells are marked with an asterisk and spells that can be remotely cast are marked with a double asterisk. In the future this will be changed, but all of the spells that you've gained access too that are legendary can also be remotely cast.]

When I finished reading the textbox it vanished, though not before influencing what I planned to do next and leaving a strong impression on me. I kept walking while reading the long textbox, aided by tremorsense and just moments before I finished reading through the grimoire's spell list I had begun to be able to mundanely detect the goblin.

The reason why I was now able to detect the goblin without my divine ability was that the thing was emitting piteous, agonized howls. Its howling caused the hairs on the back of my neck to go up as if I too was in some sort of danger even though I knew I wasn't.

The goblin was close enough now that I could hear its agony. It sounded like it was in incredible pain and it was howling constantly, from somewhere not far from me.

It wasn't saying anything in its inarticulate howling, it was just making disturbing sounding animalistic growls that echoed throughout the forest. In order to get closer to it, I was following both my divine power's map and the creature's eerie sounds.

It took a minute or two of speedy striding for me to finally lay my eyes on the creature whose agony I was hoping I could alleviate.

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