The healer nodded in acknowledgment. "A weak foundation has been the stumbling block for most mages out there. The shallower and weaker your foundation is, the less that you can build upon it. As such, for the next few years, you don't have to think about what school of magic you wish to be part of. Your sole concern should be giving yourself the most firm foundation that you can," She advised.
Getting up from her seat, the healer started to move towards the door to the room. "Follow me," came the brief instruction.
Greg walked behind the healer as they moved through the hallway. As tired as she seemed, there was no denying the sexual appeal that seemed to drip off the woman. Try as he would, Greg couldn't keep his gaze from dropping down to the perfect ass that was swaying before him. There was nothing exaggerated about her motions and Greg knew that the woman wasn't in any way trying to be sexually appealing to him. She seemed to be too distracted by whatever was on her mind. This, however, only made her allure even harder to resist. The fact was that, without trying, each of her motions had a subtle lascivious pull to them that set his blood aflame and drew him in whether he wanted it to or not.
Luckily for Greg, before he could get swept up in the lust that was bubbling up within him, the healer disappeared through a wall. Greg's mind came to a screeching halt when, without pausing, the healer walked right through the wall at the end of the hallway. Tentatively reaching forward to see if he wasn't hallucinating, Greg wanted to test if the wall was actually there or just an illusion. Before he could touch it, however, the healer's hand appeared through the wall and grabbed hold of his before pulling him through the wall. To Greg, it felt like he'd been pulled through a thick, gelatinous substance. The experience was disconcerting and a bit uncomfortable, but fortunately, brief. On the other side, Greg found himself in a small room, no bigger than a closet that was illuminated by small round balls that were somehow attached to the walls.
"Hold your breath," The healer gave another short instruction.
Greg wanted to ask why that would be necessary. The words, however, quickly died on his lips when he noticed a light coming from below his feet. Turning to look down, Greg noticed that carved into the floor was a complicated circular sigil filled with runes of various kinds that Greg couldn't even begin to parse out. The two of them were currently standing within the circle even as the runes were slowly filling up with light. Without wasting a second, Greg took in a deep breath and held it, not willing to find out what the consequences of not following the healer's instructions would be.
As it turns out, Greg had acted just in the nick of time. Barely a second after holding his breath, Greg noted the fact that the colors around him seemed to increase in saturation, so much so that they eventually started to bleed into one another. The healer standing before him started to lose her outline. Her shape was distorted to the point that it was almost impossible to tell where she started and where the wall behind her ended. It took a second for Greg to notice that this effect of things blending into each other wasn't just a visual thing, even his own body started to feel as if it was losing its substantial form and like a drop of ink dropped in water, he was being diffused into the environment around him. He didn't suffer any harm or feel pain as a result of the dissolution process. To say that Greg wasn't on edge throughout the whole process, however, wouldn't be accurate.
Before he could begin to panic, Greg felt a strange force close in around the two of them. What it felt like to be a liquid being pulled through a straw, was a sensation that Greg never thought he would ever get to experience. That, however, is the next feeling that engulfed him, except that, unlike the liquid through the straw, he was moving at a supersonic speed. The feeling only lasted for about five seconds or so. Greg, however, knew that they were now tens if not hundreds of miles away from where they'd been just five seconds prior. When they took form once more, they were still in a small, closet-sized room identical to the one they'd been in back inside the infirmary. The only clue that this was a different place from the one that they'd left was the fact that the air was noticeably cooler than it had been before.
Reaching forward, the healer placed a hand on the wall before them. Greg watched as another sigil full of various runes lit up on the wall. Before Greg could study it, however, the healer took hold of his hand and once again pulled Greg right through the wall. Seems I'm not the only one to think of a secret cave hideout. This was the thought that went through Greg's mind as he looked around at the large cavern that he found himself standing in. Unsurprisingly, the healer's cave was much more elegantly furnished and equipped compared to the cave Greg considered to be his hideout. Just in terms of size, this cave was about five times the size of the lair Greg had taken from his uncle. The roof of the cave was at about the same height as a high ceiling would be. Greg, however, could tell that the place had been excavated to give much more lateral room to its occupant than would have otherwise been available naturally.
There was a dualistic nature to the way the place had been set up. Half of the place seemed to have been designed for leisure and relaxation, the other side for serious study and research. To one side of the cave, there was a large bed that even at a glance seemed like one could sink into and forget all the troubles of the world. There was a thick, snow-white, fur carpet covering the floor on the leisure side of the cave. A rocking seat next to a fireplace carved into the wall that even now was burning. There were no logs in the pit instead, a runic sigil that produced bright orange flames was inscribed into the bottom of the hollow. The most eye-catching feature of the leisure side of the cave was a small pool full of clear water that was currently giving off a layer of steam. Greg didn't know whether this was a natural hot spring or something that the healer had designed herself. Still, he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't tempted to just sink into it and allow the soul fatigue to slowly fade out of him.
The other side of the cave was almost the exact opposite of the first in terms of how austere and bereft of creature comforts it was. All that could be found on this side of the cave were various workstations, some with strange liquids bubbling on them, others with the skulls and other body parts of various creatures on them, several had various plants on them. Others, had several open tomes on it as if the healer had been trying to zero in on an idea through the different texts. On one section of the wall there was a large shelf full of several rows of thick books. There were also large open spaces on this side of the room. This isn't to say that they weren't used for anything. The large sigils carved into the floor in these open spaces were clearly meant to serve some function that Greg wasn't as yet privy to.
"You can breathe now."
It wasn't until the healer mentioned this that Greg became aware of the fact that he'd still been holding his breath. Letting the breath go, Greg followed the healer to one of the larger sigils on the cave floor.
"Bring her out," The healer spoke even as they paused at the edge of the circular sigil. The inscription was about three meters in diameter. The size of the thing, however, was the least significant thing about it. The circle was filled with such intricate runes that not even an inch of space was left unoccupied. Even more amazing was how each of the runes had been placed in such a way that they perfectly fit into each other like a jigsaw puzzle. Greg couldn't even tell from where he'd need to start if he wished to analyze the sigil. There had to have been close to if not over, five thousand different symbols inside the sigil. If this was what the healer had been working on in the past two days since they last spoke, then Greg could understand why she looked to be in the state that she was in.
"Olivia," Greg called out. He didn't need to ask the healer who she was talking about. There was only one "her" that Greg could bring out.
"Yes, master," came Olivia's answer even as a mote of light escaped from Greg's glabella and took her shape. When the familiar's gaze landed on the healer a mischievous light gleamed in her eyes. "Master, you shouldn't be too rough on your partners," She said in a suggestive tone with the air of one who was coming to the defense of the weak. Greg knew that the familiar could see all that Greg did and so she knew perfectly well that nothing had happened between the two of them.
The healer, who wasn't slow on the uptake, quickly moved her hands through the air in an intricate pattern causing the air before her to start shimmering. Before long, the shimmering air coalesced into a reflective surface that showed the healer her present state. A sigh left the woman even as she brought her right hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. It was almost as if she was just now coming to terms with just how tired she was. The healer turned to Greg. "Why didn't you say any..." The healer paused in the middle of her question as her gaze was drawn by something below. Greg wasn't sure if he just imagined it or not, but there was a slight increase in the color on the healer's face as she turned to look back at herself in the mirror.
