With the makiwara completing the pentagram, now it was time for the tricky part.
While silver needles are the standard in my profession, the material needs to be pure.
Costly and elaborated, any jeweler would despise me for my heresy.
I took a bucket of water and a cooking iron.
My left hand became charged with energy, then my right. Yin and Yang, pouring from oppossite but complementary places. They met and sparked flames, blue flames of creation.
I nodded while maintaining the hold on the furnace. Karring took the earrings and dropped them on the cooking iron. Which was then placed above my spiritual flame. Sweat poured from me, droplets dripping and sizzling on the iron.
When the silver melted, the quicksilver was poured over the bucket.
Steam filled the room and mixed with incense.
I put my hand in the bucket, water still hot from the molten silver. I grabbed one of the silver droplets, hardened by the thermal change.
-"Lie down and place something in your mouth. This is going to hurt."
Karring crawled on the floor, her scarred back ready. I placed the tip of my improvised silver needle against her skin.
-"I can take it."
I didn't bother to argue.
And drove in the silver drop, point first.
Karring grunted but made no other sound.
Twelve times I pressed metal spikes inside her back, each time she mastered her pain.
Again, Yin and Yang met between my hands, blue flame dancing between my digits.
Karring inhaled.
-"I can feel it. The ki."
Gently, ever so gently, my hands lowered the flame, inching closer to the metal inside my patient's flesh.
-"Karrin Margarita Murphy Collings, by the energy offered by me, I ask you to heal."
-"I think ...I..Ohh God, Oh God, I can feel the ki.."
She closed her fists, bit her lips, as my will channeled by her body followed the command.
-"I can feel it, it moves, it….burns like a motherfucka!"
-"Karrin Margarita Murphy Collings, I bid thee to stop."
I closed the flow of energy and exhaled. With my eyes closed, I tried to center my breathing. When I opened them, I was greeted by a smiling patient.
Her face was damp with sweat but her smile could put the sun to shame.
-"Again! It's working!"
I cooled my hands with the bucket and restarted the flames.
After a minute, Karrin said.
-"I think I can move the ki, there this block….let me-"
I knew something had gone horribly wrong when my energy was dragged from my hands and the entirely of the Soulfire leapt from my fingers into her skin.
That's when the screams started.