Lucas Albright fought back against the throw-up rising in his throat, and against the tears in his eyes, and the snot in his nose, and–well look he had a lot of stuff to fight back against, okay?

Because his mom was hurt and it was up to him to help Dad save her. The girls didn't know first-aid. They knew lots of other stuff, but Lucas had gotten a badge in it, and he knew what to do, even if he'd never practiced on a real person before, and now it was really weird and scary that Mom was the first one he actually had to help with his knowledge.

But he could do it. He would do it. And then if he was lucky he'd never have to do it ever again because oh my god this was awful!

He watched as Dad hung the second IV bag next to Mom and put the needle into her arm. He forced himself to watch, because he might need to do it himself later and yeah he knew how to do it but it was different when you had to know how to do it.

This sucked.

"Mom is gonna be okay, right?" Liv asked from where she was standing near the river like one of the sentries from his favorite shooter game. He was glad she asked the question, because he'd been wanting to ask it for what felt like hours. But he'd been too chicken to actually ask.

And when Dad didn't answer, Lucas wasn't the only one who looked over at him and started to get scared. Dad just kept working on mom, setting up IV bags and laying out fresh bandages next to her… And praying. Dad was praying hard. Harder than he'd ever seen anyone pray in his life, that he could remember.

"Is there anything else I can do?" he asked Dad. And Dad just shook his head.

"No Luc," he said in a voice that sounded heavy and lost. "We've closed her wounds, we've got her comfortable, and we're replacing the blood she lost as fast as we can… All we can do now is wait. And pray." Dad looked up at him, then at all the others as they met his gaze. "You guys pray hard for Mom, okay?"

They all nodded. They'd all been doing that anyway.

Lucas stood up and moved away from Mom and Dad to stand next to Liv. They looked out over the rushing water of the river and said nothing as loudly as they could to try and drown out what was going on in their heads right now.

"This sucks," Liv said finally.

"Yeah," Lucas agreed.

"This is stupid," she continued, and Lucas blinked as she started to talk more. "I mean, this whole place is stupid. It's an isekai. We're supposed to have cool classes and levels and monsters to fight and level-ups. One of us should be a healer by now. We could fix Mom up easy if we had the spells for it. But noooo," his sister growled and glared at the water like it had just called her fat. "No, we get stuck with this stupid broken world, where there's monsters and things that want to hurt us, and we can't fight back properly."

"This sucks," she finished, deflating.

Lucas swallowed and said nothing. After a couple seconds he drifted away from Liv and went to stand behind one of the big piles of rocks, out of sight of the rest of the family. Where they wouldn't see him.

And when he was out of sight, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a Scroll.

He hadn't disobeyed Dad and Mom. Not really. It had been an accident. And that was the truth, not just some kind of excuse he made like that time he'd 'accidentally' taken the tires off of Mom's car to make a go-cart with. It had just sort of… happened.

Specifically, it had happened when he'd finished the slide, to send the equipment down to Dinah to sort out. There'd been a flash that the others hadn't seen, and a coin had appeared in front of him spinning slowly in mid-air. And it had appeared just as he was about to send down the second set of batteries he'd scavenged from the alarm clocks in the cabins. He hadn't been able to pull his hand back fast enough, and his skin had brushed the metal.

And just like that, the coin had disappeared and he'd glowed for a second. He'd been scared as balls, worried that he'd get in trouble with Dad. But the glow had faded away before Dad had noticed, and nothing had happened. So he'd thought he was safe.

Then he'd come back up from belowdecks with another armful of stuff, and there'd been a scroll waiting for him, held in mid-air by like a hundred little bugs that might have been bees if they hadn't been green and spherical. He'd tried to run from them, but they just followed him wherever he went, carrying that stupid scroll. So finally he'd just taken the thing, so that they'd leave him alone. And he hadn't opened it. He'd stuffed it in his pocket and tried to forget all about it.

Until now.

We should have had a healer by now.

He'd read some of Liv's books, and while he didn't love them the way Liv did, he'd really liked some of them. And yeah, he could see where she was coming from. This world was really playing by some of the rules. Not all of them, but some of them. And if this had been a book, then yeah, they were on their way to making a team. Mom would be the fighter, Dad would be the tank, and… They needed a healer.

Dad had gotten his 'calling' thing after he'd sworn to be with them and protect them. And the Calling he'd gotten had reflected that vow.

Dad was already a tank. So he probably wouldn't get a Healer calling.

But Lucas had just spent like an hour helping Dad take care of mom. He'd held her skin closed so Dad could staple it shut. He'd bandaged Mom's wounds as best he could by himself before Dad got back. He'd helped. And not just in the 'go carry my briefcase for me Lucas' kind of help. His hands were bloody and his clothes were stained with Mom. He'd cleaned her cuts. He'd almost thrown up when he'd washed her legs. He had thrown up when he'd cleaned out the deep gash in her side, but then he'd gotten right back to work.

Because Mom was hurt, and he could help her.

He stared at the scroll in his hands. If there was a chance…

He broke the wax seal and unrolled the scroll, forcing himself to read it before he could change his mind.

Welcome [Personage]!

Thou hast taken thy [gangly] steps upon the road of [fish]! Thy first [cranberry relish] lays dead at thy feet. Claim now thy [coriander] and thy boon from the list conferred upon thee.

This scroll shall be thy [kumquat]. Stretch forth thy hand to seize it any time thou doth wish to consult it. Within, thou shalt find record of thy deeds and thy [fashionable glasses].

Thy current Renown is: [gerbil]

Thy current [mesquite barbecue] is: Unworthy Worm

Thy current rank in the world is: Lowly Peasant.

Thy Current [Persiflage] is: 0

Complete quests to earn [mesquite barbecue], vanquish foul [cranberry relishes] to gain fortune and renown, and above all keep thy heart strong and thy mind clear, Sojourner, for the road that lays before thee.

He felt something settle in him, like something that had been loose and flapping around in the breeze had suddenly been tied down and secured. He tried not to feel guilty; he was intentionally disobeying Mom and Dad on this one. They'd told them not to take the coins, they'd told them they wouldn't be messing with the things this world did. And they probably would have told him not to read the scroll if they knew he'd gotten a coin accidentally.

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But Mom.

He closed the scroll and it disappeared from his hands. But he knew that he could just reach out and grab it again from wherever it had gone, so he wasn't worried.

Now let's see if I'm right.

He held his breath. Which was probably a bad idea, because if this didn't work, then he'd probably pass out. But he couldn't help it. He thought he had it figured out. Dad had gotten his calling after performing a Feat. In theory, if there were healer classes available, what Lucas had done for Mom might have been enough to get him a calling as well.

Except he didn't have a scroll.

Well now he did.

He waited. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, he felt the blood pounding in his ears. What if he was wrong? What if the System only counted stuff that happened after you got a scroll? What if–

Lucas felt the earth tremble under his feet. No, scratch that, under his foot. The left one, specifically. He stifled a yelp and absolutely did not jump like three feet in the air in surprise. He did not do this because no one saw him do it and therefore no one could prove it had happened and that was that.

He landed and spun to face the little mound of earth that was being pushed up from below where he had been standing. After a couple seconds, a small furry head popped out. The thing was analogous to an Earth gopher, with big teeth and round little ears and squinty eyes that turned this way and that before they settled on him.

The sorta-gopher gave a chirrup that sounded more like a cricket, and one paw came up from out of the hole clutching a smaller scroll with big blunt claws that it had obviously stolen from a mole back on Earth.

Lucas breathed out all his air in one big whoosh and practically shot forward to grab the scroll. The gopher-mole-thing squeaked in alarm as Lucas snatched the scroll out of its paw and broke the seal in one fast movement. By the time he had it unrolled, the little critter had disappeared beneath the ground again.

He read the scroll, and he could barely keep a crow of triumph from bubbling out of his mouth.

Thy [insistence] and diligence hath earned thee a Profession

Thy selflessness in tending the sick and wounded and thy calmness in the face of [wombat] doth shine through in times of trouble. Should thou wish it, thou may accept the profession of Chirurgeon.

Should thee accept this profession, thou wilt gain the ability to treat injuries and sicknesses of all ilk.

Signify thy agreement by speaking aloud thusly:

"I, [insert name here], do accept the profession of Chirurgeon. I shall tend the sick and the wounded until they recover or my strength flags."

What the heck is a chirurgeon? Lucas stared at the scroll. And why was it saying it was a 'profession' and not a 'calling' like Dad's had been? He had been expecting something like 'healer' or 'white mage' or… Or something he knew what the heck it was.

But the description made it sound like a doctor. And 'treat injuries of any ilk'... That worked for him. Mom had injuries of ilk. Lots of ilk.

There wasn't really a choice, was there?

"I, Lucas Simeon Albright, do accept the profession of Chirururur… of chirush… Of…" he paused and glared at the scroll. A pronunciation guide would be super helpful right now.

"I," he started again, "Lucas Simeon Albright, do accept the profession of chi-rur-ge-on. I shall tend the sick and the wounded until they recover or my strength flags."

There was a flash of light and the scroll disappeared. There wasn't a big fanfare like when Dad had gotten his calling–oh that was weird, Dad hadn't had a choice to accept his calling. Maybe professions and callings really were different things? As he thought about it, what he thought of as the Big Scroll materialized in his hand again and unrolled by itself. At the bottom of it were new words.

Thou hast gained thy first profession

{{ERROR, ERROR, PRIME [PICANTE] DISASSOCIATED. EMPIRE STOCKPILES OFFLINE [ASPECTS] MAY NOT FUNCTION}}

{{ALTERNATIVE [PICANTE] INTERLOCKS HATH BEEN DISENGAGED}}

Analyzing thy [margarine]

Thy efforts to this point hath left thee with 10 [margarine].

Thou may power thine [aspects] through the expenditure of [margarine]

Go forth and heal the sick, Chirurgeon!

A counter appeared on the handle of the scroll, and he saw a little icon of a coin appear, followed by '10'. Was the scroll interpreting 'margarine' as some kind of coin? Was it the same kind of coins that he and Mom and Dad had grabbed that gave them their scroll? And what was with that weird 'error' message the scroll was talking about? Did that mean he used the coins to power his skills?

If it was, that kinda meant that it wasn't really money, right? But more like… Class points? Some kind of energy currency?

He shook his head and rolled the scroll open more, searching for information on his new profession. He found it after just a couple seconds. He read through it all, glossing over the weird little [] words that signified the brokenness of the system.

And then he was running, because he'd found what he was looking for.

[Healing Balm]

Expend thy energy to heal the sick and wounded.

{{Error: Empire Reserves Not Found. [Margarine] Expenditures enabled.}}

This is a profession skill

He came around the rubble at a dead-run, feet pelting against the ground as he made a mad dash for Mom. Dad was still squatting beside her, holding one of her hands in both of his. She didn't look any better. If anything, she actually looked worse.

"Luc?" Dad looked up as Lucas screeched to a halt beside Mom and dropped to his knees. "What are you–"

Lucas stopped listening to Dad. He stopped listening to the voice in his head that said this was probably a bad idea. He really tried to stop listening to the voice that reminded him what had almost happened to Dad the last time they'd tried to use powers.

He listened to just two voices. The first one, the ugly little black one, that hadn't stopped whispering 'Mom is dying' into his ear ever since they found her. And the second one, the new one, that just repeated two words over and over. Words he had seen listed under 'powers' on his new profession sheet.

He listened to those words, put his hands on Mom's leg right over the still-leaking leg wound, and whispered them out loud.

[Healing Balm]

There was a chime in the air, Lucas's eyes widened as his hands started to glow a gentle warm gold, and he felt something inside of him spark and lessen somehow.

Let this work let this work please God and Jesus if you're listening please let this work.

And it did. The golden glow washed over Mom's flesh, sealing shut small cuts wherever it went.

But it wasn't enough. He could tell in the first second that the cuts weren't all sealing shut, and it wasn't doing anything for her bones.

No. It has to work!

He buckled down more and more, gripping Mom's hands hard enough to turn his fingers white. He'd seen the look on Dad's face when he hung the IV, when he'd stapled the wounds shut… Mom was in bad shape, and if this didn't work–

Something deep within him went twinge, and he felt a rush of something flow out of him and into the golden glow around Mom. It was like that time he'd gone on that roller coaster at Magic Mountain and had wound up feeling like his stomach was gonna come out through his ears.

And then a soft voice that came out of thin air murmured gently:

[Desperation Arts: Thou Shalt Live]

The glow from his hands suddenly intensified and spread over Mom, not just her leg but her whole body. He felt that lessening sensation intensify inside him, but it didn't feel like it was hurting him and so he ignored it. Because as he watched, Mom's wounds started to close.

It was so gross.

Her leg wound just kind of schlorped closed, the medical staples Dad had used to try and stitch it back together came out slowly and fell to the ground as the flesh knit itself back together. The glow traveled up her leg to the scratches and cuts on her belly, and then to her chest where it lingered and swirled, and he could see the bones moving under Mom's skin.

"Wha–" Dad's yelp cut off as he too just stared as the glow raced along Mom's body. The cuts on her back healed. The broken and distended arms were set and reshaped until they looked normal. And then the glow went down towards her broken leg–and stopped.

His scroll appeared in his hand again and unfurled to the bottom, where the words 'Insufficient [margarine] to complete healing. Desperation Arts terminated.' showed in what Lucas could swear was an apologetic kind of font.

He also noticed that the little coin icon on the handle was currently showing '0'

Of course, he also noticed that he was holding a scroll. A scroll that demonstrated, quite clearly, that he'd disobeyed his parents on at least one occasion and probably several. He looked up from the scroll and saw his dad staring at him, mouth open and eyes wide. He looked around and saw Dinah and Liv and Bel all staring at him with the exact same expression on their faces.

Oh man, am I in trouble, he thought.

Then Mom stirred. Everyone stopped staring at Lucas as their eyes jerked to Mom. She groaned, and her eyes fluttered open. For a second they stared up at nothing, then her pupils contracted and they started looking around. She didn't try to sit up–or maybe she did and realized that it was a really bad idea–but her eyes managed to lock onto everyone else in the clearing for at least a couple seconds.

"Hi everyone," she said in a voice that was weak and trembly and so completely not-Mom that it sounded alien to Lucas' ears. "What did I miss?"

Chaos erupted.

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