“Greetings, I am Niphru,” he decred as the men shied away.

  He found it highly amusing that the men were falling over themselves trying to get away, but it was also against his goal, so he tinued speaking, “As I said, I was sent to find you since you hadn’t made it back to the vilge retly. You aren’t my enemy, unless you attack me first, so you don’t o be worried about me.”

  At this statement, the two men looked at the bear thrashing about on the ground before looking back up, clearly not at ease. The o the rear quickly slipped into the cave as the other tio retreat toward it, dubiously gng between Niphru and his torch.

  With a sigh, Niphru stated, “I ’t exactly help you if you just hide from me. I’m assuming the others are in that cave. Are they injured?”

  With anween him and the bear, the remaining man lowered his tord rexed somewhat before remarking, “Well, I guess if you wanted us dead, I wouldn’t still be alive, would I?”

  After a short bark of ughter, the man tinued, “We ran into a bear and almost mao kill it before this one showed up as well. By the time we mao finish off the first, two of our people were badly injured, and we’d lost several ons due to the power of their blows. We fled and barely beat it to this cave. It couldn’t get in without digging, and feared fire, so we were trying to keep it back as long as we could in hopes we could think of a way to get rid of it.”

  Niphru nodded and, seeing as the bear’s struggles were lessening, moved himself closer to the grouhe man. The man didn’t back away any further, which pleased him, and he responded, “That is unfortuhat you have badly injured people. Luckily, I am also a healer. If you vihe others to not attempt to attack me, I see what I do to help them before we go back.”

  The warrior shook his head and barked out anh before stating, “It isn’t like we could do mubsp; It took six of us t down one bear like that, and you just took it out like it was nothing. Hell, look at you now, barely even paying attention as it finishes dying from yibsp; You are scary, Niphru, was it?”

  Hearing this, Niphru shook his head before replying, “I may be able to do that, but even just a stick like your torch would really hurt if you tried to attack me with it and I was too slow. I’m a mage, not a brute.”

  As the bear finally stopped moving, Niphru moved his foxfire away from it, revealing its throat to be more of a charred hole than anything else. Nodding, he told the man, “Please get the others to e out now that the beast is dead and we see about getting everyoched up and ready to return.”

  The man took a gnce back to the cave before turning back to Niphru and asking, “You know how to get back then? We got turned around several times and are very much lost.”

  “I do. I was supposed to try to find you and bring you back if I could, so I’ve been keeping track of which way is back to the vilge,” Niphru replied as he split his bined fme apart and moved to nd beside them.

  Hearing this, the man nodded before approag the mouth of the cave and shouting for everyoo e out and that it was safe now.

  A few moments ter, two people poked out of the opening and took a look around, spotting the smoking corpse of the bear, then gng at each other. They theurned inside, and a momehe fire inside ut out, judging by the end of the smoke. A few moments ter, they returned, bringing two badly injured individuals with some others assisting. Several nervous gnces were thrown at Niphru, but they didn’t back away, at least.

  After a quick mention that he could heal to the newers, they carefully set down their fellows and stepped back, clearly wary. The woman who still had a mace, however, did not seem likely to raise it yet, which relieved Niphru.

  To avoid arming them, he stated, “The most effective way for me to heal is with my fmes. They only burn what I want them to, and also be used for healing. If anyone is willing to volunteer, I prove they won’t harm anyone, just put your hand in the fire.” Following this statement, he moved one of his orbs of fme he group.

  After gng at each other, one of the men stepped forward and held his hahe fire, obviously feeling for heat, then grimaced and stuck his hand inside. He quickly pulled it back out, looking at it with a slightly surprised expression, the it with his other hand. Following his quick check, he put it bato the fme, this time without such a ive expression.

  After several more seds, he removed his hand, felt it again, and then showed that it was unharmed to the others. Following this, all of them rexed, and the woman waved Niphru forward, watg him ily. After approag, he examihe two injured people. The man looked like he had taken a gng blow to the chest, but also had much deeper cuts into his leg, a tourightened around the thigh above. As Niphru looked up, the ma his gaze and shook his head befesturing to the woman beside him.

  The unscious peared to be in much worse shape, her face pale and a cut extending deep into her side that was sluggishly bleeding. As soon as he noticed, he quickly moved his fmes over the wound. The tour around the man’s leg worried him, since he didn’t know how long it had been there, but at least the man wasn’t bleeding to death. A quick check showed that the woman was in very poor dition, so he focused his magi healing her.

  While he couldn’t heal bones quickly, nothing appeared broken at a gnce, and he could at least help speed up their produ of blood, so he did his best at that task as his foxfire mended her side. Meanwhile, the people watg him rexed further as they saw the wound slowly closing before their eyes. While most of them seemed relieved, the woman he assumed to be the leader was still ed.

  “Do you think you save Kira? I didn’t expect her to st this long, and she lost an awful lot of blood as we fled,” the woman asked.

  Without stopping his work, Niphru responded, “She should be fihough it will take a while. Blood is hard to repbsp; I’m assuming she focused on strengthening her body as mana flowed through her? I don’t see how else she could survive this long with so little left.”

  The woman nodded, replying, “That she did. Most of us focus on that for the most part. I’m gd you think you save her. We all thought she was a lost cause. Ralph here, we were thinking he might lose the leg, but otherwise, he was mostly fine.”

  Hearing that, Ralph spoke up, “I told you I’m to to lose it, woman! Surely a little cut like that isn’t too bad! Quit w!”

  Niphru nodded and, seeing that the wound in Kira’s side was mostly sealed, moved one of his fmes to begin healing Ralph’s leg. As he worked, he inquired, “How e only you have a on?”

  The woman ughed and shook her head before answering, “We were foolish, it seems. Others said to use blunt ons, but most of us went with spears and swords. They get stuck quite easily, it appears, when they do mao pierce the hide. The bear also hit damn hard, and if it caught a on, it hurled it a good distance away. We couldly take the time to recover them when we were trying to run. We got lucky that Ralph mao stab through its leg before it got him, that really slowed it down.”

  “Ah, that makes sense,” he replied.

  He then pushed his senses deeper into Kira, trying to feel for any deeper injuries. Fortunately, it appeared that the gash in her side was the only real wound, and her ribs hadn’t fractured, though they did have a ni them from one of the cws.

  They fell into silence again, aually, Niphru felt that the woman’s wound was healed enough for now. While he tio work on repg her blood, he sent his remaining foxfire to join in on mending Ralph’s leg. Some time ter, Kira’s skin had regais color, and she was breathing more easily, so he moved to the man as well.

  By this time, the foxfire had already sealed his wound, and Niphru found himself surprised that no one had removed the tour while he was w with the woman. Upon asking why, he got the respohat all of them had been taught not to remove ohout a healer ready, as it could cause worse problems.

  Si hadn’t been removed, he had the ce to ihe limb, finding a number of issues had arisen, and began fixing those. Eventually, he asked for someoo remove it while he tio watch through his magic.

  Several other issues cropped up, but he was able to resolve those as well. He found himself surprised at how quiet Ralph had been during the process, as the cloth had been incredibly tight, and both the pressure and the release must have been quite unpleasant, and he couldn’t influehe nerves like Monti ba Blightfall could.

  The man carefully stood up with the help of his fellows aly put weight on his leg, nearly colpsing again. After looking down at his leg, he gave Niphru a thumbs up and expined, “It feels really damn numb, but it doesn’t bleed, and it moves, so I should be fine!”

  After a quick double-che Kira, Niphru asked if the group was able to travel, and as a respohe one helping Ralph nodded. Someone picked up Kira, and the rest stood up from where they had beeing. Following this, everyone expressed that they could move. Nodding, Niphru asked them to hold on for a moment and used his magic to rise above the trees again, orienting himself based on the few ndmarks he had noted along the journey.

  Landing once more, he asked for them to follow and begarip back to the vilge.