burnt out babaylan
When World of Warcraft meets Filipino folklore
I wrote about burnout in a near-future world that is fully AI automated for Sick Stories in a story called Dream Machine. Following that publication, I wanted to write something a little more lighthearted and hopeful about burn out recovery. I’ve been thinking of this concept in our folklore that healers cannot heal themselves, and I also love gaming. In this short story, burnt out babaylan, I merged the two loves: the joys of being in a World of Warcraft guild and Filipino folklore.
Just as a shameless plug, if you like this story, please consider becoming a paid subscriber! While this story is free, I have other long form paid stories like The Multo of the Forgotten Queen and An Empire of Monsters, both modern interpretations of our folklore and stories.
burnt out babaylan
I am the best group healer–a babaylan–the world has ever known. Truthfully, my job is watching people stand in fire like dumb fucks and I’m expected to heal them.
And that’s what I’m exactly doing when this mythic void dragon with seven heads appeared out of nowhere. The first of its kind, its scales are also covered in another layer of magic which makes their hide impossible to pierce. As it bellows out fire, there is always at least one person standing next to its pool, and I call to the Gods above to cocoon this person from their own stupidity.
This idiot doesn’t speak for our guild, though. We’re renowned for ranking world-first for raid clears, usually seventy-two hours after it appears. My sweaty guild aims to always kill these epic creatures first, so the entire world can hear the deathblow call of our best warrior, Besnel. Usually only eight heroes go, while another sixteen wait in case they need support. It has been hard having a normal life, having to heed the call all the time. Once, our main tank’s wife was going into childbirth right as he left his home, so one of the sixteen in the reserve had to jump into his place.
My tendrils of light reach at least six people. I carefully downrank spells so it’s not all healing—I’ll toss out a quickstep or protective bubble so there’s some preventative care. In being the best babaylan, my raid encounter movement and castings are studied in guild libraries across the world, so many raid healers have come to rely on my positional knowledge to even hope to keep up.. This is why I take this seriously. I have to protect my people and our reputation, and if I fall, someone else may not be strong enough or smart enough as me. I would feel terrible if we wiped at .4% of phase 4 on a Witch Queen hard-mode. And if I don’t stay in the margin of excellence that I am, the guild will cut me out of the roster, despite my history of world-firsts.
The dragon lets out a shriek and out of its mouth comes a laser, something we’re all not expecting. People jump and cower out of its beam. One of our skirmishers is cut clean in half and I know I have to do something. I have a new spell, one that can make you immune to any attack for 5 seconds. I call upon my inner power and pull out my green light from my chest after it blooms like a flower in my belly. Up, and up it goes, and it spreads upon the battlefield. Its petals cover my colleagues. And as the lasers cross them, it takes no effect. One man is brave enough to launch his spear as the dragon’s mouth is open for the laser attack, and the dragon is finally hit. It shrieks, and I go deaf. I feel blood dripping from my nose, but I laugh. A friend pats me, but I collapse onto my knees, he’s the last thing I see before my world turns to black.
When I wake up, it’s nothing out of the ordinary at first. I just needed a long rest. But when we fought a witch who just rose from a swamp out of the blue, and she summoned ten thousand mirrors of herself, who had knives for legs, my guild leader, Strom yelled out “Use your power, Sana! Save us!”
And I did, I covered my colleagues in the planet’s protection and they were unfazed by her razor heels. But then I collapsed again, nearly getting myself killed, and everyone was without a healer while I slept. So many people fell and were frustrated by my power’s demanding cost.
And this is how I ended up in Beha’s studio, lying on a woven mat, staring into a mirror, with her next to me.
“You’re a babaylan of amazing power,” Beha assured. “What do you feel when you collapse each time?”
I explain to her: I just feel sleepy right after. My head nods off and people talk to me, but it’s a warble, then I collapse.
“I wonder if it is because you use all your energy, Sana. You only learnt this skill as an area of effect, but try protecting me only, and we’ll work up to several, so you can be efficient with your magic. Use only the right amount of energy, not all of it.”
Beha turns down the oil lamps in the room, so it’s dim and calming. I sit in a comfortable position, for I know the first thing she’ll tell me is to be at ease. I close my eyes, take a slow deep breath in and exhale gently. I feel my shoulders relax.
Beha begins, “With each inhale, feel yourself becoming lighter. With each exhale, release any stress, any burdens you carry. Let them dissolve into the air, leaving space for something new, something healing.
Bring to mind the person you trust. Whose energy brings you peace and strength. Picture them standing before you, their presence steady. Imagine them looking at you with kindness, understanding, and unwavering support. They’ve come here without judgement. Invite their energy to surround you.”
This is a hard one. Everyone is so demanding around me. Like, “Sana! Can’t your healing work faster? I know my torn limb should be healed first, but my arm hurts!”, “Sana! You always heal him first over me!”, “Sana, why are you slow?”, “Sana, you can’t take a vacation now! I don’t want your sub, she sucks!”
But I hear a soft voice underneath all the screaming. A gentle, familiar one. “You are safe,” she echoes, “you are protected. You are never alone.”
I open my eyes, and see the energy of the green protection petals wrapping around my body. I breathe in the truth of the words when I realize it’s my mother’s voice, I let that weight settle into me. I let the memory of her and me biking under a summer sun hold me. I see her giving me a magic wand for my eight birthday, and feeling seen. I remember when I broke my leg and was sad we couldn’t ride out the next summer, she read books to me while I lay in bed, and I felt deeply cared for.
The image of her fades, but I’m not sad to see her disappear there. Her energy remains with me. I take one final deep breath in, before I cast the spell onto Beha, knowing to not use the power surging through me.
“Just one petal,” Beha smiles.
And just one petal floats towards her and she cups it in her hands. I see her hands are protected, and I wonder if I can do a selective body part in order to conserve energy, versus wrap the whole body. We continue this exercise, where we pass the green petal back and forth. As we do this, at first my mind is empty, but it starts to fill up with I wonder how my mother was doing. I had left home to join this guild and hadn’t have time to go see her, because I was always an active combatant or on the bench. Mama told me not to worry when I apologized for not seeing her. She said she was happier to see me work and build a life in another city. If she only knew I stayed home playing these games instead, because I’m lonely in this other place.
Ma had been a healer herself, and she told me this one thing she learnt from her tribe, “While we heal others, a babaylan cannot heal herself.”
Absent-minded, I pass the petal back to Beha, but in my racing thoughts, I give her a hundred petals versus one. I feel the energy swell in me and then deplete as I protect her entire body. And then the sleepiness returns. She says something to me, but I fall face first into the ground.
Beha keeps me on track the next day. She does more than one guided meditation to clear out my mind, so I don’t sidetrack into anxiety. My concern about my mother is a good one and I’ll request some time off, but for now, I know I have the time to focus on myself. Not only to learn this skill to protect others, but also protect myself, not give so much of myself in battle.
After all, I am the best babaylan. And if I fall, someone will take my place. But it’s not a thin margin, not something someone can do right away. A lot of trial and error, a lot of deaths of countless healers to these emergent monsters, will be because I couldn’t keep my powers up.
Though it was only day three, when a giant harpy the size of three castles appeared. Thankfully most of what I had to do was repair—lots of direct healing after someone lost an eye or got their hand cut. But it came to the final four who made it close enough to the beast. It liked to stomp, so there was no way I could do a selective body part.
But I still tried to incorporate the lesson from Beha. To not let my energy pour out into the world, to be intentional, to focus on the people before me. I thought of my mother standing in the field with her bike, her distant words enveloping me, “You’ll get it this time. Come on. I’ll teach you how to bike.”
With her words, I see the petals wrap themselves around my colleagues. I pray to all the Gods my fatigue won’t swallow me. I fall to my knees as the last petal leaves me, and to my amazement I don’t start to nod off. I do not have the strength to stand, but I’m awake, watching them disappear under the earth shattering stomp of the harpy, but then rising from underneath, grabbing onto its claw and scaling the titan, knowing the battle is won.
“You’re amazing Sana!” My team cried, when they realized I had stayed awake.
“What do you need to continue to cultivate this skill?” Strom asked me.
“Rest,” I said, simply. “Can I take some time off?”
Strom eyes me as if he has a million reasons not to, but he seems to swallow it. “Yes, so long as we can get your sub not running in spotlights and attracting mobs! But Beha maybe can help her, and I know you’ll be an amazing teacher.”
“Thanks Strom,” I stand on my feet, the hope of a quiet, less chaotic time already giving me an incredible lightness of being.