Novice 1.8

Spending a night in a guest room at the top floor of the Palanquin, Thomas was feeling a lot better after a good long shower and a chance to eat. Even if he had some doubts about working with, or possibly working for Faultline, he had to admit it beat the option of a crummy motel room. He glanced at the windows, noting that the guest room provided bullet proof glass windows to it. He did not touch the curtains, even if he did not really expect anyone to be already after him.

The tray with his breakfast on it had been delivered to the table when he was in the attached bathroom, leaving him briefly wondering if he could simply walk out of the room or no. Not that he was in a particular hurry, but he did feel he would have preferred to have something to do, and there was no computer present in the room.

Opening the door to the hallway he found the hallway empty at the time, but it did not remain so for long. Rachel, the bouncer from last night, had just arrived walking up the nearby stairs and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"Good morning. I was wondering if it was possible to borrow a laptop or a tablet computer for a while? I was interested on checking the web after all."

"I'll check with the boss first, but I should be able to get a laptop for you, if she permits it."

Thomas nod his head at that. He wasn't expecting much more anyway. He was still a relative unknown for Faultline, a person that might provide her with some profit, but that remained to be seen. Returning to his room and sitting down, he closed his eyes to focus on the powers again, calling upon them to make his choices for the day.

Switching his selections around for the day, he settled down to wait for a moment. Half an hour later he had the laptop he had asked for, and a note saying that he would have a client showing up just past noon, and another one half an hour later.

He took a moment to log in onto the PHO forums, and looked around briefly for any threads possibly related to himself. Finding none, he merely shook his head slightly and then continued to look around the actual threads about the things ongoing at Brockton Bay and the rest of the U.S.

What was revealed was bit of an unpleasant surprise. The country was having a number of criminal capes that had more than earned a kill order, but were being spared. There were people who would have already been sentenced to either death or life in prison if they were not capes. Some of them in Brockton Bay, but several more beyond it.

The country was in a poor state, and he had a feeling Cauldron's activities encouraging trigger-inducing environments were at least partially to blame. A large share of the guilt still belonged to the Endbringers, but the part that Cauldron had played in things should not be underestimated. He had a feeling at least half of the cape crooks could be put down by regular servicemen by a short military conflict, but the civilians would cry out at such actions and Protectorate and PRT heads would rage at the intrusion on their perceived territory.

Slaughterhouse Nine was at least on a short list to be taken down by any means necessary, and they knew it, preferring to travel around undetected until they were already surrounded by people and no longer a feasible target for an airstrike. Mobilizing the troops to catch them had even been considered it seemed, but the threat of Siberian and Crawler seemed to make them hesitant to use either option without stronger firepower behind them for taking out those heavy hitters.

He continued browsing for a while, before a knock was heard at the door. Walking over and opening it , he found himself looking at his first real Case-53. Given the look of the guy, he knew who it was. "Newter, right?" Tom smiled on seeing the guy nod.

"I'd shake your hand and tell you it is good to meet you, but well, I imagine Faultline wants me to show up downstairs now?" He asked this with a smile on his lips while Newter smirked slightly.

"Yes, and I was told to remind you to put on your mask. You didn't appear to have a costume with you when you arrived, but we did arrange something for you to wear to help conceal your features beyond the simple mask." After having said that, Newter held out a closed case for him which Tom took curiously.

Opening it, he found it to contain a long black robe and a plain white mask, as well as black gloves to go along with it. He hummed briefly and nod. "Alright, I'll change and come with you."

The robe was quickly pulled on top of the rest of his clothes, the gloves put on, and the mask in place. Newter then lead him down to the basement level, where he found Faultline and two others in her group standing around. One of them appeared to be Gregor from what he could figure, the other was a woman he wasn't familiar with right away.

Gregor's body was a bit strange with the translucence of the skin giving out a view like a shadow of the bones within, reminding him of just how the Case-53 had to suffer from unusual mutations alongside their powers. The little growths along his skin were a touch more disturbing, but he preferred to not mention them or even look at them for long, merely nodding at the man in brief greeting.

The woman in turn had a green mask and robe on her figure, the robe having some puzzling design reminding him of a maze. The thought of that sparked recognition. Could she be Labyrinth? He had not expected to meet with her.

"Good to see you are up and ready, Medic. Your first patient has arrived, and is waiting. They suffer from an old wound that is still bothering them, and are quite willing to pay generously for your aid. Your share will be $4,000."

That was more than he expected, but he nodded his agreement. When escorted to the other room, he quickly realized why this was. The man was dressed in a fine suit, and looking quite respectable, but there was a sense of danger about him that made him wonder what lay in his background. His suit's sleeve had been pushed up along with the under shirt to reveal his right arm, upon which severe burn scars remained, the other sleeve similarly pushed up to reveal nasty permanent burns, though these ones were smaller than the ones on the right.

"You are the healer? I hope you can do something about this. Panacea is busy and does not appear willing to take someone in even at a promise of donation to her or the hospital, and the hospital staff seem to regard skin grafts difficult due to depth of some of these burns." The man had an accent he couldn't quite place, it sounded like it could have been Russian or something from Eastern Europe, but he wasn't going to make any wild guesses on that.

"Alright, this looks like it may take a few uses of my power, but I am hopeful that we can fix this." Thomas spoke seriously before moving to the man's side.

He focused on his power, and started casting. The burns were nasty, he doubted the man could use his right hand properly with those burns and the fact they weren't wrapped up in bandages made him wonder. A thought occurred if surviving Lung would leave someone with similar burns, but he did not ask.

The first spell seemed to bring some relief as the man let out a short breath and closed his eyes. Ignoring that, Thomas continued, sinking the second, third, and fourth charge into the burnt arm, watching the ruined skin seem to start to dry up, and actually shed, revealing red raw but smooth skin beneath. He noted the man's other arm had also recovered while he had focused on the right, the four castings having left the man with what seemed like mere sunburn. It felt a bit of a waste, but he spent a fifth charge to clear up even that, relieved to note that despite how bad the burns had looked, he had not needed a stronger spell to deal with them.

If there was any ability damage, he would have needed restoration spells, but if there was any it didn't show, and the man's disbelieving but joyous expression at lifting his hands and looking over them and his arms made him smile behind his mask.

"This is marvelous! Worth the price! Hah-haa! Good work my boy, good work." The man grinned and actually slapped his shoulder afterwards, before moving to check himself over before a mirror.

Faultline stepped in to take care of things after that, while Newter gestured him to join him back in the other room afterwards, a grin on his own face.

"Good work there, do you need a bit of rest now? We've got half an hour before the second client we are expecting."

Thomas nod his head slightly and took a seat nearby, humming briefly to himself. "I should have brought the laptop with me."

After dealing with the second client, a short woman with a gunshot wound in her guts, Thomas was resting back in his room again. The second client had been a fugitive, and unfortunate bystander to a recent gang fight which resulted in her getting shot. She had offered less for her aid, but he had still received $2,500 for providing some emergency aid.

The bandages had been soaked, but a healing spell had staunched the worst of it, and another casting had seen the bullet emerge from the wound before it was mostly closed up. It had been sufficiently healed up to recover from naturally at that point, and Faultline had waved him back rather than having him continue healing her.

He had noted to himself that he'd got his hands on a sum of $6,500 in such a short time after worrying about less than a hundred bucks yesterday, that sometimes a day's time could really change things around.

Quick math also told him that he'd made just under ten thousand dollars for Faultline as well, so he hoped that would convince her that having him around would be beneficial. Though he did want to spend some of his money to get some additional clothes for himself. Faultline had already dropped off a card with an account now holding a sum of $4,000 on it, and the other $2,500 having been handed over in cash.

"Hey Newter, if I wanted to go out and visit a store, would I be able to or am I supposed to stay indoors?" He asked this seriously, not quite sure what he would answer.

"If you want to leave, you can, but we can't send someone out to follow you around town if you go. You are protected while here, but your contract doesn't include protection around town. You're also expected to be around when there's a client coming. Speaking of which," Newter got up and moved to a nearby shelf, before picking up a small box on it, and setting it down before Thomas.

"A burner phone. Faultline's number is on it, and she has the number to it on her own. Keep it with you, and if you are called back you come back in a hurry. Alright?" Newter looked at him seriously before Thomas nodded his agreement.

"Okay, then you are free to go. Use the back door, if you need to get back in just ring the second number on the phone and someone will come open the door for you. Don't worry about it going unanswered." There was a brief smirk on Newter's face at that.

He stashed $2,400 off in his room while taking just an extra hundred in addition to what he had left from last evening in his pocket, the debit card resting in his pocket as well after he had briefly memorized the four digit code for it.

Stepping out, he found himself letting out a heavy breath. It had been somewhat nerve wracking wondering if they considered him a prisoner or not, and if there would be limitations to his freedom. The fact their protection didn't extend beyond their business was a bit disappointing, but he had not specified things about it when making an agreement with Faultline. She held onto her own part, but he shouldn't expect freebies from her.

If he did run into trouble and needed help, he was relatively sure she would insist on him paying extra for it. Not that he was too concerned about that right at that moment. Instead, he decided to head on over to the boardwalk and have a look around.

"Why do I put up with you?" Brian sighed wearily as he looked at the smug smirk on Lisa's face, shaking his head.

"Oh come on, that wasn't really all that bad." Lisa waved off Brian's concerns while snatching away a couple of the black boy's french fries, chomping down on them while looking around the old diner thoughtfully.

"Not that bad? Lisa, we almost had a fight at our hands! Please don't pick fights with people who wouldn't hesitate to try and kill us."

Brian sincerely wished Lisa was taking him more seriously. The smug vixen seemed completely unconcerned and unrepentant of the fact their recent theft had left ABB furious at them. It was only the fact they had only got off with a relatively small amount of loot that kept them from trying to hunt them all down. The fact the boss paid them for harassing the ABB at that particular hour made up for the small amount of loot they had received, in exchange for some of the papers.

"You're exaggerating." Lisa said this bluntly while trying to snatch a bit more of his fries only to have him give her hand a light swat.

"No Lisa, I am serious, we should not antagonize people when it is not necessary."

"Not my fault the guy's girlfriend was less than faithful, he already knew but didn't want to admit it, I just put the clues together for him in a way that he could no longer deny when he tried to threaten us." Lisa flashed that damnable smile once more and Brian leaned his face against his palm, elbow on the table, and sighing loudly.

"Look, I-" Lisa started to speak before pausing, looking out of the window confusedly, and frowning.

"What the fuck?" She stated while staring at a guy in black jeans and a grey sweater walking in the diner and walking past their table, her eyes following him.

"Something wrong?" Brian asked in a lower tone of voice, causing her to turn her gaze to him.

"That guy, my power is telling me only that he is 'completely ordinary guy, ignore.' No details, no life history or other clues, nothing. It is the first time that's happened to me." Lisa looked more than a little troubled by this, causing Brian to look over at the man's direction as well and frowning.

Author's Note: If bad timing and bad luck were possible to take in drawbacks, they might explain part of what is going on. Other ideas include the old Chinese curse of 'may you live in interesting times'.

As for nerfing the healing, hmm. A single casting of it is enough to stabilize and save a life, several can eradicate harm. Immediate damage can be dealt with relatively easily, damage that has 'set in' and not recovered over time has been seen taking bit more effort but still within healing capabilities.