A few more deals were made, and more books were collected before the men arrived with the sword to be enchanted and the trailer for Wolfe's bike.
Wolfe took a look out the window to see the trailer, which looked nearly new and large enough to carry his loot back home, so he gave the delivery man the thumbs up and looked to the one who proposed the trade.
"What would you like in exchange?"
The man looked to the side, shuddered and turned back to Wolfe. "I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be murdered in my sleep if I do not get my wife a garden charm for our anniversary."
"Wise call. You can never overestimate the health benefits of a happy family." Wolfe agreed, but Stephanie gave him the usual annoyed look, reminding him that she didn't sign up to be doing a full day's work when she agreed to take a road trip.
Wolfe leaned close to the Familiar cat and quietly taunted her. "You're getting lazy now that we are settled in. All this practice is good for your spellcasting skills. You can't rely on raw power all the time. You've got to work your control and expand your repertoire."
[That's rich coming from you, but you're not completely wrong. I really should get some work done so my spells aren't any worse than the others. But these garden charms are annoying. Can't you ask them to have me cast healing spells or something?]
Wolfe stroked her head and looked out into the crowd. "If there is anyone who needs the healing services of a Rank Two witch, Stephanie says she will agree to provide the service at a preferential price. Apparently, the Garden Charms are annoying to cast."
The witches laughed a little at his assessment. The spell was complex, with multiple steps, but they were layered and not linked, so it wasn't really challenging to cast. It just needed as much power as you could give it and a fair bit of patience.
A one-armed woman with deep scarring on every visible part of her body stepped forward with a hopeful look on her face.
"Just how much can a Second Rank Witch heal?" She asked.
Wolfe turned to Stephanie for her expert assessment since he really didn't know the answer, but the Familiar Cat was already deeply engrossed in the assessment of the witch.
[It looks like undead creatures or something with a similar type of necrotic curse made all of the scars on her. That's why the weaker witches couldn't heal them. I can fix the scars, but I'm not sure about the arm.]
"She can fix your scars, but she's not certain about the arm because of the nature of your injuries. Is that acceptable to you?"
The witch nodded. "It's a good start, and I will pay based on how much can be fixed."
ƥandasnovel·ƈom She set a stack of books and inscribed items on the table beside her, indicating that she was willing to negotiate after the healing was finished.
Normally that was not how these deals went, but it would be a nice change for Stephanie, who didn't get too many chances to show off in front of a crowd. Healing external wounds was flashy, and it would get her more respect from the witches in the room, who innately viewed a Familiar as lesser than a regular witch.
They still treated her as a pet of Wolfe's even though Stephanie was much more powerful than any of them were, and someone like Ella or Cassie would be very close to being worshipped in a situation like this.
Just like when Mary healed the second of their junior witches, vines grew up from the floor and engulfed the witch as a green glow surrounded her.
They didn't damage the floor tiles, they seemed to grow up from the spell circle that had appeared at the witch's feet, and as the spell wore on for most of a minute and Stephanie drew more and more mana from Wolfe, they turned into a thick ball around the target, before retracting to the ground and revealing the freshly healed witch.
From the outside, she appeared to be flawless, without a mark on her skin and looking years younger than before, as if hard living and time had never touched her skin.
The lost arm was regrown and baby soft, with the sort of soft, slightly plump fingers that only small children and the crippled had, as it went away when you started to work the muscles.
Stephanie stood up to admire her work and gave a gesture with her paw for the witch to turn around so that she could see her back as well. The witch reluctantly obeyed, and Wolfe saw that the tank top she was wearing revealed flawless skin on her back and shoulders, though he had no idea what was there before.
[Ha, she doubted me, but she will see. I reset everything back to perfect.] Stephanie gloated.
The witch turned back to face Wolfe and Stephanie with glistening eyes, but the sweet moment was interrupted by one of the other witches her age giggling.
"Stephanie went all out. Did you notice, sister? Even your tattoos are gone." The witch laughed.
The witch looked a bit frantic, and lifted her shirt, then twisted around to look at the various spots on her body where she expected there to be ink but found nothing but delicate new flesh.
"See, good as new, not a mark on you," Wolfe informed her, ignoring the fact that she clearly hadn't intended for all of her tattoos to be erased.
The witch slowly flexed the fingers of her regrown hand and smiled. "I will take that side effect in this case. I've got my arm back again. I heard that one of your witches did the same for the Sergeant with the blind eye."
"That would be Mio, I believe. One of the other Second Rank witches in the Den. A damaged eye and a few scars aren't a big deal at her power level, but the regrowth of a whole limb took quite a bit of mana." Wolfe agreed.
"You know, you could do very well as a Coven of Healers specializing in extreme trauma if you travelled." One of the older witches suggested.
"We do travel a bit, but within what is now the Fae Forest. Any further out isn't really feasible as a regular route, so they would have to come to us, or at least close to the Forest and ask for us.
With everything that has gone on lately and the way that the Covens have treated many of the Witches who chose to settle in the Den, it's not really safe for them to be wandering long distances alone.
None of them wants to fight their kinfolk, but the Coven leadership won't just let a witch of that power level wander the wilderness as she pleases when there are so many issues inside the Cities that need attending to."
The locals sighed at those words. Wolfe was right. A single Rank Two witch was a prime candidate for all sorts of schemes to entrap and enlist her for someone else's gain. Some might be mostly benign, like charging others to be brought to her for healing, while others would go for forced marriage, a Servant Bond, or actual imprisonment and torture to convince her to go along with their plan.
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