Chapter 2: The Breaking PointThe m after the storm dawned bright aively calm, as if nature itself was trying to apologize for its noal tantrum. For Kray, however, the day held no such tranquility. Word had spread – as it always did in Luma tolified by gossip and embellished with each retelling – of Dray the Quack’s test failure with Master Tiber’s dog. The whispers followed him like shadows as he went about his farm chores, weeding rows of lettuce, his usual lighthearted whistling repced by a heavy silence.

  Then, just as the sun climbed highest and the midday heat became oppressive, a frantic summons came. Era, the baker’s daughter, known for her cheerful disposition and quick wit, arrived at their farm, her face pale and streaked with tears.

  “Kray, please, you have to help!” she gasped, clutg her ankle, which was already swelling armingly. “I tripped in the bakery, carrying a tray of hot loaves. Twisted it something awful.”

  Kray’s heart lurched. Era was a kind soul, always him a warm smile and a sweet roll when he passed the bakery. This was it, his ce. A ce to finally prove them wrong, to finally use his healer css for something worthwhile.

  “Let’s take a look,” he said, his voice a little too eager, a little too high-pitched. He led her gingerly to a shady spot uhe old apple tree and k beside her, his hands trembling slightly as he examined her rapidly bruising ankle.

  “It’s… quite swollen,” he stammered, his healer’s diagnosis as insightful as a stone. He pulled out a fresh poultice, a more potent mix this time, fortified with willow bark and ile – ingredients Grace had suggested, more out of folk wisdom than any real magical efficacy.

  “This will… help,” he decred, with forced fidence, pressing the poultice against her throbbing ankle. He focused all his will, all his desperate hope, willing his ent healing abilities to ma, to do something. He imagined warmth flowing from his hands, mending the torn ligaments, soothing the iissues. He trated so hard, his brow furrowed, his muscles tensed, as if physical exertion could somehow force magic to bloom where there was barrenness.

  Miretched into ay. Era winced, her breath ing in shallos. The swelling remaihe bruising deepened. Kray could feel the sweat trig down his back, his head starting to pound. He pushed harder, his internal mantra a desperate, silent plea: Heal, heal, heal!

  But nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. The poultice sat there, smelling vaguely of herbs, no more relief than a damp rag. Era’s pain was etched clearly on her face, her cheerful eyes clouded with misery.

  The weight of his failure crashed down on him. The whispers, the mockery, the years of uselessness – it all coalesced into a crushing pressure in his chest. He was a fraud, a chartan, just as they said. He was Dray the Quack, forever destio be a ughingstock.

  Suddenly, a wave of dizziness washed over him. The bright sunlight seemed to flicker and distort. His vision swam, the clear outlines of the apple tree blurring into hazy shapes. He felt a strange buzzing in his ears, a rising hum that drowned out Era’s whimpers and the gentle rustling of leaves.

  He swayed, his knees bug. Era cried out, reag for him, but it was too te. The world tilted violently, and he plunged into darkness.

  Then, everything dissolved.

  It wasn’t just darkness. It was… an absence. An absence of sound, of st, of touch. He was floating, adrift in a void. But then, colours erupted, not the gentle hues of the farm, but vibrant, swirling nebue of impossible shades – electric blues, searing es, pulsing violets that seemed to hum with energy.

  Strange shapes formed and dissolved around him, geometric patterns that shifted and rearrahemselves endlessly, like living mandas. A cacophony of sounds assaulted him, not the familiar sounds of Luma, but abstract melodies, dissonant chords, rhythmic pulses that resonated deep within his bones, making his teeth ache and his skin tingle.

  He felt a straat, as if he were this sensory explosion from a distano longer Kray, the failed healer, but just a point of sciousness adrift in a ic o. There was no pain, no fear, just a bewildering sensory overload, an abstract ballet of light and sound and impossible geometries.

  Then, amidst the chaos, a sharp, clear chime pierced through the swirling nebue, like a single, perfectly struck bell note in a raging storm. The colours momentarily coalesced, the shapes solidified, and a message fshed before his eyes, stark and unambiguous, against the fading kaleidoscope.

  [System Notification: Skill [Pleasure] Unlocked!]

  The words hung there, luminous and ingruous in the chaotic dreamscape. Pleasure? What in the name of the Saints did pleasure have to do with healing? Healer css, yes. Failure, definitely. But pleasure? It felt absurd, almost insulting.

  He tried to focus, to make sense of it, but the dreamscape was already shifting again, the colours blurring, the sounds dissolving bato abstraoise. The notifiessage faded, repced by… nothing. Just the swirling, disorienting void.

  Then, slowly, relutly, the void began to recede. The abstract colours softened into the familiar green of leaves, the chaotic sounds faded into the gentle murmur of the stream, the impossible shapes resolved into the f form of the apple tree above him.

  He blinked, his eyelids heavy, his head throbbing. He was lying on the grass, the st of damp earth filling his nostrils. Era was kneeling beside him, her face etched with worry, but the swelling in her ahough still visible, seemed… slightly reduced? Or was that just wishful thinking?

  He pushed himself up, groaning, his body protesting with a dull ache. He felt drained, utterly depleted, as if he had run a marathon in his sleep. But amidst the exhaustion, a faint echo of the notification lingered in his mind. Skill… Pleasure… unlocked.

  He shook his head, dismissing it. Just a halluation, a product of his overexertion, his desperate desire to be anything but a useless failure. Pleasure? Ridiculous. He was Dray the Quack, remember? And quacks had no business with pleasure, only with failure and humiliation. Yet, a seed of bewildered curiosity had been pnted, a tiny flicker of something he couldn’t quite name, led amongst the ashes of his test failure. A seed that might, just might, begin to sprout in the fertile ground of his desperation.