After focusing on healing for a while, Niphru noticed that Ralph seemed to be getting over the shock now that the battle was over.  The man was still panicked, which made sense, given the state 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 managed to finish healing the hand as best as he could, having fully stopped the bleeding and at least managed to get skin to seal over the exposed muscle and bone.

 

As the group prepared to leave, they seemed to decide they needed to be ready, unlike before, and everyone grabbed large branches that didn’t break when slammed into the ground.  While far from being proper weapons, they were at least better than not having anything and needing to scramble for something.

 

Seeing the humans preparing to move, Niphru ascended above the canopy again to verify what direction they had to move, as the battle had been more important than remembering it.  Once he landed again, he thought for a few moments as he began to lead them away.

 

Eventually, he decided to bring 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 plants in the fight.  Have I been burning them down for no reason?”

 

Unlike what he expected, their leader wasn’t the one to 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 plant or being torn to pieces by a twisted creature, the choice is pretty obvious.”

 

With a quick chuckle, she continued, “When we still had our weapons, 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 weapons.  Would it be too much trouble to ask you to continue clearing the way?”

 

With a moment of thought, Niphru decided that it wouldn’t be too dangerous to give information away and explained, “I have two types of fire, normal magic as well as something that seems unique to me.  The foxfire, the other one that can heal, doesn’t seem to tire me out, and I can control it as easily as breathing.  I can’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 continued, “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 continue to clear them out along our path.”

 

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

 

Immediately one of the men snapped, “Oh, shut up, Alice.  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, and letting Ralph get injured even worse than before he showed up.  Totally helpful,” she responded, shaking her head and grimacing before she looked at Kira and continued, “I guess he did save Kira at least…”

 

Caught off guard by the sudden change 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 don’t exactly have armor and weapons.  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 counter my magic.  I got rid of the bear that had you cornered 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 handles things differently.  It seems clear to me that we screwed up, you saved us, then we got 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 was putting 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 exclaimed, “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 glad 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 reasonable, it 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, and kept away from others.

 

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

 

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

 

Roughly an hour later, Niphru again lifted himself above the trees before redirecting the group, having gotten somewhat off their course.  With so little bothering 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 another twisted beast, this time a more typical boar with thick forward-facing tusks and skin that glinted of metal.  When it looked up from digging in the soil, it snorted and spat a blob of grey goo at them.  Fortunately, it was a relatively slow projectile, easily avoided.

 

It was almost pitiful how easily the creature was dealt with compared to their prior fight, an illusion causing it to slam into a tree at full speed, then a mace shattered the skull in one blow.  Considering how long they had been traveling, Niphru hopped back up above the canopy, finding that he was correct in his guess.

 

“We are nearing the village; if anyone feels up to it, bringing back the boar might be a good idea,” he informed the group.  A moment later, the leader stepped forward to carry it and nodded to him.

 

The village had changed 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 anyone outside the gate.

 

They shouted something as the group approached, however, and a moment later, the gates opened.  A short while later, they got close enough for the watcher to shout to them, welcoming them back.  Once they passed through and into the village itself, a villager closed the gate behind them and gestured for them to follow, heading inward.

 

It didn’t take long to reach the elder’s house, which had also changed a bit, seeming to be more of a staging point than a home now.  Inside were a few villagers 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 entered the building and, upon spotting the members of the Church of Conflict, began giving them simple tasks around the village 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 later, he found himself correct, though the outcome 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 can do is remove what is left and seal the stump.  Leaving it would likely cause issues in the future, 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 accomplished with shocking speed, Narath’s knife flashing through the bone almost as if it wasn’t there.  Even as he started to react, Narath was already healing the fresh wound.  Mere seconds later, 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 aren’t exactly in the best shape.  What happened?”