“Greetings, I am Niphru,” he declared 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 continued speaking, “As I said, I was sent to find you since you hadn’t made it back to the village recently.  You aren’t my enemy, unless you attack me first, so you don’t need to 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 one at the rear quickly slipped into the cave as the other continued to retreat toward it, dubiously glancing between Niphru and his torch.

 

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

 

With another glance between him and the bear, the remaining man lowered his torch and relaxed somewhat before remarking, “Well, I guess if you wanted us dead, I wouldn’t still be alive, would I?”

 

After a short bark of laughter, the man continued, “We ran into a bear and almost managed to kill it before this one showed up as well.  By the time we managed to finish off the first, two of our people were badly injured, and we’d lost several weapons 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 ground near the man.  The man didn’t back away any further, which pleased him, and he responded, “That is unfortunate that you have badly injured people.  Luckily, I am also a healer.  If you can convince the others to not attempt to attack me, I can see what I can do to help them before we go back.”

 

The warrior shook his head and barked out another laugh before stating, “It isn’t like we could do much.  It took six of us to bring 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 your magic.  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 come out now that the beast is dead and we can see about getting everyone patched up and ready to return.”

 

The man took a glance 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 village,” Niphru replied as he split his combined flame apart and moved to land beside them.

 

Hearing this, the man nodded before approaching the mouth of the cave and shouting for everyone to come out and that it was safe now.

 

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

 

After a quick mention that he could heal to the newcomers, 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 alarming them, he stated, “The most effective way for me to heal is with my flames.  They only burn what I want them to, and can also be used for healing.  If anyone is willing to volunteer, I can prove they won’t harm anyone, just put your hand in the fire.”  Following this statement, he moved one of his orbs of flame near the group.

 

After glancing at each other, one of the men stepped forward and held his hand near the 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, then felt it with his other hand.  Following his quick check, he put it back into the flame, this time without such a negative expression.

 

After several more seconds, he removed his hand, felt it again, and then showed that it was unharmed to the others.  Following this, all of them relaxed, and the woman waved Niphru forward, watching him intently.  After approaching, he examined the two injured people.  The man looked like he had taken a glancing blow to the chest, but also had much deeper cuts into his leg, a tourniquet tightened around the thigh above.  As Niphru looked up, the man met his gaze and shook his head before gesturing to the woman beside him.

 

The unconscious woman appeared 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 flames over the wound.  The tourniquet 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 condition, so he focused his magic on healing her.

 

While he couldn’t heal bones quickly, nothing appeared broken at a glance, and he could at least help speed up their production of blood, so he did his best at that task as his foxfire mended her side.  Meanwhile, the people watching him relaxed 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 concerned.

 

“Do you think you can save Kira?  I didn’t expect her to last 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 fine, though it will take a while.  Blood is hard to replace.  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 glad you think you can 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 too strong to lose it, woman!  Surely a little cut like that isn’t too bad!  Quit worrying!”

 

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

 

The woman laughed and shook her head before answering, “We were foolish, it seems.  Others said to use blunt weapons, but most of us went with spears and swords.  They get stuck quite easily, it appears, when they do manage to pierce the hide.  The bear also hit damn hard, and if it caught a weapon, it hurled it a good distance away.  We couldn’t exactly take the time to recover them when we were trying to run.  We got lucky that Ralph managed to 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 nick in them from one of the claws.

 

They fell into silence again, and eventually, Niphru felt that the woman’s wound was healed enough for now.  While he continued to work on replacing her blood, he sent his remaining foxfire to join in on mending Ralph’s leg.  Some time later, Kira’s skin had regained its 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 tourniquet while he was working with the woman.  Upon asking why, he got the response that all of them had been taught not to remove one without a healer ready, as it could cause worse problems.

 

Since it hadn’t been removed, he had the chance to inspect the limb, finding a number of issues had arisen, and began fixing those.  Eventually, he asked for someone to remove it while he continued to 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 influence the nerves like Monti back in Blightfall could.

 

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

 

After a quick double-check on Kira, Niphru asked if the group was able to travel, and as a response, the one helping Ralph nodded.  Someone picked up Kira, and the rest stood up from where they had been resting.  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 landmarks he had noted along the journey.

 

Landing once more, he asked for them to follow and began the trip back to the village.