After fog on healing for a while, Niphru noticed that Ralph seemed to be getting over the shoow that the battle was over. The man was still panicked, which made sense, giveate of his hand. The maimed mess that remained was far worse than any of the injuries the group had experienced before he had arrived, after all.

  In the end, Ralph eventually shook his head and muttered, “I guess I’m not going to be much use in a fight anymore…”

  The others attempted to cheer him up, but none could deny that only being able to use one hand would make it harder to be effective. Midway through their meeting, Niphru finally mao finish healing the hand as best as he could, having fully stopped the bleeding and at least mao get skin to seal over the exposed muscle and bone.

  As the group prepared to leave, they seemed to decide they o be ready, unlike before, and everyone grabbed rge brahat didn’t break when smmed into the ground. While far from being proper ons, they were at least better than not having anything and needing to scramble for something.

  Seeing the humans preparing to move, Niphru asded above the opy again to verify what dire they had to move, as the battle had been more important than remembering it. Once he nded agaihought for a few moments as he began to lead them away.

  Eventually, he decided t up what was on his mind, “You seemed pretty weak when the bear was after you, but I saw you making use of the dangerous pnts in the fight. Have I been burning them down for no reason?”

  Unlike what he expected, their leader wasn’t the oo speak up, but rather the one carrying Kira. While shaking her head, she remarked, “Not at all; those things are still dangerous, but when you have a choice between risking being hurt by a pnt or being torn to pieces by a twisted creature, the choice is pretty obvious.”

  With a quick chuckle, she tinued, “Wheill had our ons, it was easy enough to clear the way when we couldn’t just avoid them, but especially with wounded, it would be a problem even if we had our ons. Would it be too much trouble to ask you to tinue clearing the way?”

  With a moment of thought, Niphru decided that it wouldn’t be too dangerous to give information away and expined, “I have two types of fire, normal magic as well as something that seems uo me. The foxfire, the other ohat heal, doesn’t seem to tire me out, and I trol it as easily as breathing. I ’t even make it go out, only hide it by turning it into an illusion.”

  After shaking his head, he let out a huff and tinued, “I don’t think you should have been out nearly this far if you couldn’t easily deal with the simplest threats out here. But I will tio clear them out along our path.”

  “Thank you, oh great fox,” the woman excimed, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Immediately one of the men snapped, “Oh, shut up, Alibsp; I get that it feels bad to need help, let alone rescue, but that is no excuse. So what if he isn’t human? He is still doing his best to help us!”

  “Yeah, sure, staying away during the fight, not doing anything effective, aing Ralph get injured even worse than before he showed up. Totally helpful,” she responded, shaking her head and grimag before she looked at Kira and tinued, “I guess he did save Kira at least…”

  Caught off guard by the sudden ge in the woman’s attitude, Niphru took a moment to recover from his surprise before stating, “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I doly have armor and ons. I would just be feeding myself to something if I attacked it up close, and it isn’t my fault that thing was able to ter my magibsp; I got rid of the bear that had you ered with less effort than I put into that fight. Everyone has limits. I didn’t see you kill that beast either. Does that mean you didn’t try your best?”

  In response, Alice scowled at him before looking away. The man who had scolded her shook his head and remarked, “I’m sorry, this is a rough situation for us, and everyone hahings differently. It seems clear to me that we screwed up, you saved us, the horribly unlucky.”

  After a short pause to leap over a fallen tree, Niphru sullenly stated, “I’ve never seen anything like that thing before. It utting off enough mana that it had to have been from far deeper into the wilds. I even ran into a snake big enough to swallow people in one gulp, and it didn’t put off even a tenth what that badger did. It scares me… it just shrugged off everything.”

  Laughter rang out from several of the people nearby before the same man excimed, “That probably makes all of us then. Normally, things get bigger and visibly mutate, not stay the same size. If it was strengthening what it already had, it must have barely felt anything we did to it. I may not know why it left us, but I’m gd it did. Maybe we just weren’t worth the effort?”

  Niphru stopped to think about the battle, letting the group catch up and pause for a moment as well. The idea seemed reaso had shown that it could easily tear them apart, but it had been knocked away from the two of them who had been caught by it, a away from others.

  “I think you may be right,” he answered before hopping forward and beginning to jog again.

  A short while ter, he ran across a snake, only for it to hiss at him and quickly slither away to the side when he didn’t approabsp; This reminded him again of how little they had run into so far. Perhaps the amount of noise was sg away most creatures, though he wasn’t going to pin about not having to deal with more trouble along the way.

  Roughly an hour ter, Niphru again lifted himself above the trees before redireg the group, having gotten somewhat off their course. With so little b them, and not having to search around, it seemed like they’d make it back by the end of the day, and he informed the group, much to their relief.

  Later, they ran across awisted beast, this time a more typical boar with thick forward-fag tusks and skin that glinted of metal. When it looked up from digging in the soil, it snorted and spat a blob oo at them. Fortunately, it was a retively slow projectile, easily avoided.

  It was almost pitiful how easily the creature was dealt with pared to their priht, an illusion causing it to sm into a tree at full speed, then a mace shattered the skull in one blow. sidering how long they had been traveling, Niphru hopped back up above the opy, finding that he was corre his guess.

  “We are nearing the vilge; if anyone feels up to it, bringing back the bht be a good idea,” he informed the group. A momehe leader stepped forward to carry it and o him.

  The vilge had ged slightly since he had left. As he emerged from the trees, he didn’t see the corpses lying around outside like he had on his trip outward. A look to the walls also revealed only a single person visible from his position, not even aside the gate.

  They shouted something as the group approached, however, and a momehe gates opened. A short while ter, they got close enough for the watcher to shout to them, weling them babsp; Ohey passed through and into the vilge itself, a vilger closed the gate behind them aured for them to follow, heading inward.

  It didn’t take long to reach the elder’s house, which had also ged a bit, seeming to be more of a staging point than a home now. Inside were a few vilgers resting near a board with a number of tasks on it. When one looked over at them, he stood up, said he’d get Morris, then jogged out of the door.

  The group decided to rest as well while they waited, several of them leaning against the bare walls, others sitting on the floor. Shortly afterward, Morris ehe building and, upon spotting the members of the Church of flict, began giving them simple tasks around the vilge with a request for them to rest for the day after they finished.

  For Ralph, he requested that the man follow him and walked out of the building again, leading him away. Having not been given a task, and being curious, he followed, guessing that the man was being brought to Narath and Brigid to attempt to heal his hand. A few moments ter, he found himself correct, though the oute was unfortunate.

  “It has been too long to properly heal. If we had been nearby, we might have been able to reattach what was missing, but even then, it wouldn’t be a sure thing. The best we do is remove what is left ahe stump. Leaving it would likely cause issues iure, and it isn’t like it will be useful,” Narath reported to the man, causing him to show a glum expression.

  In the end, Ralph did agree to have the mangled mess removed, which was aplished with shog speed, Narath’s knife fshing through the bone almost as if it wasn’t there. Even as he started to reaarath was already healing the fresh wound. Mere seds ter, it looked like it had fully healed over the stump.

  After Morris directed the unfortunate man to go rest, he focused on Niphru and asked, “I see that you found them, but they arely in the best shape. What happened?”