//------------------------------//
// The Counsel of Healers, (Unslayable Foes, Part 3.) 
// Story: Meta Gamer in Equestria: Champion's Folly 
// by reflective vagrant 
//------------------------------//

The tests on the blood samples all came back negative, allowing me to not be locked up the entire time.  They did caution me to be careful, however.   While the tests were reliable enough, they didn't cover all possibilities.  I still had about as likely a chance to get a terminal sickness as any of the other creatures of the kingdom, given biology variance from race to race.
Plasma Wave escorted Speaks with Talons and myself to the meeting room.  When we stopped at the door, Speaks with Talons gave an asking look to Plasma Wave.  Just as soon as Plasma Wave stepped out of immediate earshot and idly itched his mechanical wing fittings, Speaks with Talons looked to me.
"Thank you for granting me the chance to get my thoughts together, but I must ask you one more favor.  I am no longer the ambassador of the Tribal Collective.  Our teacher has taken that title now that he is here, and he will be the one speaking for the Tribal Collective in the meeting.  In his absence the senior most student present would speak on his behalf, but it will be inappropriate for us to speak out of line in such a gathering while our teacher is present."
He gave a sigh and braced himself to continue in a more bitter tone.
"My teacher's other apprentices may fit in an offhanded remark if they are asked to speak, but it is only bait.  Whatever you do, do not come to my defense during the meeting.  As good as your intentions, it will be a sign of you believing I am so weak as to need your help in their eyes and it will only have the opposite effect of its intent.  If they approach us after the gathering, we can address them then."

With this warning, he nodded to me and we opened the door to find most of the room filled already.
Starlight and multiple medical doctors were present, along with Sunburst, Princess Twilight and Princess Cadence.   Her husband, the general prince and a few crystal guards were behind her.
Wild Storm stood closest to the table, with Zecora back just a little ways to his left, followed by a barely adult zebra stallion and the pony I recognized as Fluttershy's friend among the servants, Tree Hugger.  To his right was a well seasoned griffin with the head of a hawk.
Sitting a good deal directly behind the hawk griffin was another adult griffin, albeit a good deal younger, with the head of an owl.  Behind him was another griffin with the awkwardly long beaked head of a toucan.  This one was barely fully grown.  Yet another, still younger looking eagle griffin sat just shy of being against the wall.  The eagle griffin was about the size of Speaks with Talons, though he looked like he still had a year or two of growing left in him.
After shaking off the noticing of the rigid differences in the bird qualities among them, it took me only a second at the relative ages of their lion parts to realize they were lined up by seniority behind their teacher.
This was further reinforced by the fact that Speaks with Talons seemed to be the second eldest among his brothers by age and there was a good deal of space between the nearest griffin apprentice to the teacher and the next.  More than enough space for Speaks with Talons to sit between them.
Going up to his teacher, he nodded in acknowledgement then tried to move on only to be stopped by his teacher calling his name.
"Speaks with Talons," The hawk griffin said with the thick accent of my amulet translating tribal griffish and a tone that tried to be formal, but had the warm undertone of a father happy to see his son showing through.
Stopping just long enough to briefly reply, "Claps to Thunder," in kind, Speaks with Talons marched past.
This is where my expectations of the family dynamic were shattered.
Speaks with Talons managed a neutral exchange of nods with the eldest apprentice.  It was neither loving nor bitter, just formal.  But when he got to the toucan, the apprentice gave a tilt to his nod, and eyed the space between himself and the eldest in an expectant, almost mocking fashion.
When Speaks with Talons moved past him and the vacant spot he had purposely left for him, my jaw dropped.  He simply reached the last one and gave a downward glanced nod.  In return, the eagle headed griffin gave a quick and somewhat aggressive, begrudged nod in return.
With the nod received, Speaks with Talons went to the eagle headed griffin's side and sat down as far back as he could against the wall.
The eagle headed griffin turned to look at the near identical seating between him and Speaks with Talons, then brought his head up to Speaks with Talons with a glare.  In response, Speaks with Talons did his best to squish himself against the wall and put himself as far back from the other apprentice's seating as he could.
The master griffin, Claps to Thunder, briefly glanced back at his apprentices, then gave a sigh and returned his gaze to the front.
The words, "Do not come to my defense . . . it will be a sign of you believing I am so weak as to need your help," rang again in my mind.
With nothing else I could do, either for him or myself, I let the frustration go as best I could in a quiet sigh.  Turning  to lean on an empty spot of the wall that didn't seem to have any other attendee's near it, I waited.



* * *



Maybe a minute or two after settling in on my little section of wall, I noticed the eyes of the unfamiliar griffins eyeballing me.  The apprentice griffins had looks of disapproval, but the master griffin and the younger zebra were just curious.	None of the apprentices had the guts to say anything, though.
A while later, a few higher ranking changeling medics came in with the one I had recognized as their leader, king Thorax.  They were also followed by a meekly postured Mandible.  Once they were seated, their king cheerfully turned to Mandible and gestured towards Wild Storm.
The young changeling quickly trotted over and greeted his teacher, who gave him a warm smile and a gentle rubbing of the head with his talon.  With a quick glance between the two leaders and a silent nod of approval from Thorax, Mandible took his place a few meters directly behind Wild Storm as his apprentice.
Soon after, the doors opened again and revealed what I presumed was our last three attendees.  The first two I could recognize as two of the Pillars of Light that helped seal the rift, but I had not become savvy to either of their names.  All I could tell was that one had a mask with her while the other showed signs of great aging.  The third, however, was one that made me do a double take, then brace myself against the wall.
Princess Luna.
When her eyes landed on me, she was likewise taken back.  With a carefully placed, soft and non-aggressive tone, she spoke,
"Moss,  I apologize.  I was not aware you would be attending this meeting."
With a moment of pause, she turned.  "I can ask my sister to attend instead..."
I reached out and brushed the tip of her wing with a shaking hand.  She, and many others, looked in surprise at this contact.
With a press of my amulet, I stumbled through a response while keeping my breathing level.
"Sunburst asked me to attend, though I still don't know why.  But you were prob-bably needed here for a reason.  I'll manage."
With an awkward silence, Princess Luna looked around uncomfortably for another moment, unsure.
Finally, Sunburst chimed in, gesturing them to their seats.  "We need all kinds of healers with their input here.  While dream walking does not directly heal the body, it is one of the most effective ways to aid a tormented mind.  You are the most experienced dream walker in the land by far and Moss might have some bits of wisdom from his home-world's medicine that we haven't thought of."
Archimedes came flying through the door only shortly after the three took their seats.
"And besides, Archimedes might have some insight on this situation as well and Moss is the only one that can directly convey the thoughts of Archimedes fast enough to keep the meeting flowing."
Though surprised, I extended my arm for him to land on, which he did promptly.  As he climbed to my shoulder for more efficient seating, he relayed a message to me.
"Please tell them I apologize for being late.  A guard mistook me for a simple animal on the way to the meeting and I was forced to find an alternative route."



* * *


The meeting went oddly smoothly with so many practitioners of traditional medicine and alternative medicine working on the same project.  The Servants were willing to assist with their healing magic, which the traditional practitioners had to admit they couldn't do to any significant effect without the assistance of the Animus Mundi.
However, the servants' abilities were extremely limited due to there being so few servants present per capita, even with the summons of the Crystal Sister.  They would have to work with the traditional practitioners in preventative measures to mitigate spread and treat the cases that the ponies had non magical treatments for.
To this end, Zecora—who had a history of working with both other servants and Equestrian doctors—had managed to modify her medicine mask a while back to meet traditional standards to more smoothly cooperate with them, while still effectively manage to function in its original purpose.   She also presented additional similar masks.  Masks that she had the foresight to start crafting for other servants that might need to coordinate in a similar fashion when she realized the Crystal Sister was summoning prominent healers.
The changelings said they had a list of diseases they were immune to and ones that would be particularly detrimental to them.  Once reviewed by the pony doctors, this would let them better allocate the already trained traditional changeling medics to patients that would otherwise be a risk to ponies and vice verse.  Beyond that, they had to apologize that they didn't have a whole lot more to contribute than a supplement of raw hoof power.
Princess Luna said she could coordinate with the dream walker's guild to look out for telltale signs of the known plague diseases that would manifest during sleep.  This hopefully would act as a partial early detection blanket and slow the spread of infection while also helping maximize early treatment.  Above and beyond that, all the dream walkers could do would be their normal duties of helping with dreamers in keeping their fears in check.
Archimedes had little to add, save that he would be willing to act as a counselor should an unknown disease from the other world crop up.  I also thought I had little to add, but I positively had the doctors' full attention when I mentioned plasma transfusions from already recovered individuals as a way to boost immune systems.
"Could you elaborate?"
I scratched my head with the arm not holding my familiar.
"Not a whole lot, not really.  The general concepts are common knowledge, but the exact details and methods are vague.  I'd suggest trying to do your own research before going in blindly.  But the basic idea is the components in the immune system that recognize the diseases persist in the plasma for several months at elevated levels.   These components can be transferred to compatible patients, acting like a kind of artificial supply drop for the recipient's immune system to better identify the invading diseases and attack them sooner and in greater force.  But this will only help in cases where the problem is identifying the invading diseases.  Other medicines might be better in other cases.  Some diseases cause detrimental toxins to be expelled when they are killed off, building up faster than the body can philter them out.  In cases like this it's better to have medicines that stunt the disease from increasing in number in the body and let the body take them out at a safer rate instead of a medicine that just kills the disease off faster than it can repopulate."
Multiple doctors simply had their jaws slack at this.
"Fascinating!  We will have to follow up on these leads right away!  And this is common knowledge in your home world?"
I bobbed my head side to side as much as Archimedes' presence would allow for.
"Kind of?  The exact details of how to research it definitely require advanced training that I don't have, but most of these concepts are available for the common people that bother paying attention in the biology classes of our basic school system.  As broken as the school system was in helping us be decent people, it did have the potential for knowledge for those that invested the effort."
The doctor I recognized from treating me before looked over to Zecora.
"And you said he couldn't even manage a first aid kit properly!?"
Simply letting the comment die, Zecora turned to the present Pillars of Light.  The pillars in turn looked at each other and sighed.  
"We sadly do not have much to contribute," the one with the mask like the servants addressed the others,  "Mistmane said she would do what she could to keep the population calm and treat what she can, but she can't heal a whole lot with æther without making significant, permanent sacrifices.  That will severely limit her long term capacity.  If you can tell me what the folks are being ailed by, I'll share the recipes for what remedies to other potion makers like Zecora that I can.  My family and I will do what we can to help with whipping up those remedies to the best of our ability too.  But sadly, while my family wear healers' masks like the servants, we're not servants of the Animus Mundi.  So we can't help with the healing spells, eith-."
The doors slammed open to reveal a well to do family charging in.  Without so much as an explanation, one of their staff came in and levitated a familiar and clearly sick pink filly to the center of the table, causing the guards and the general prince to quickly pull back the princesses from the potential threat of infection.
The apparent mother with a necklace of pearls and a snarky face I'd never forget piped up with a very, very entitled attitude that was also all too unforgettable for me.
"Many of you owe us from our years of donations. We need you to have your magic friends heal our daughter, now!"