Noa’s breath caught, his heart lurching into overdrive as the lion tore into the side of one of the few pregnant trolls that traveled behind him. She howled, her dreadful song echoing down the tunnel like a signal to the lions on the other end to lurch.

“We’re pinched!” Armael bellowed. “Kids, focus on healing behind us! Slingers, to the aid of the mothers. Spearmen, carve a path forward. We need to get into a wider space! Do or die, men!”

Without questioning Armael’s rather sudden uptake of command, Noa pulled aether from his stone, shooting it towards the mother who quite literally had a chunk bitten out of her side. With the adrenaline pumping, and the darkness hiding the horror, the woman’s innards hanging loose didn’t faze him nearly as much as it should have.

Light from Armael’s spellwork appeared above, the scene growing grotesque as a second lion latched onto another woman's arm. Several of the mothers managed to slip past the guardian trolls━the ones carrying healers━though none of them noticeably pregnant like the first that was bleeding out.

Noa pressed aether against the wound while stone slingers bashed rocks into the head of the second lion.

System [Lesser Appeal] level 44 → 45.

System [Mend] level 22 → 23.

The wound healed at an incredible pace! It even closed up, the woman's innards being pushed back into place. I didn’t know I could do that! Noa thought, jaw dropped.

“Kids, inform me of fatally severe wounds!”

Oh, Noa realized, It wasn’t me. Armael had healed that troll. Maybe Noa had touched some of the bleeding, he supposed.

As soon as three slingers Fended off the second lion, a singular brawny one punched the first further away, and a transparent golden wall slipped in between the lions and trolls, most certainly of Armael’s doing. A third lioness even bounced right off it.

“Kids, focus frontward now, heal Chief and her squad!” Noa turned at Armael’s command, Mama Troll immovable for the moment. Armael went on as Noa rushed aether out to Chief’s bleeding leg, “You, black troll, tie your sling tightly above her wound, enough to cut off circulation”

Noa pressed the aether onto Chief’s wound, examining it first.

System [Lesser Examination] level 25 → 27.

“Kids, don’t forget to work together!” Armael barked, his voice grating.

“Yes sir!” Tin said in kind. “Light blue troll has four lacerations across the chest!”

“Chief has the same kind across the left thigh,” Noa reported, already sending aether to Baby-blue. “I got Baby-blue for a [mend] already.”

“Got it.”

System [Mend] level 23→ 24.

Baby-blue, invigorated, rushed past his comrades, his spear saving another from a claw, then expertly twisting around as he jabbed it deep into the side of the now exposed lioness. The troll he’d protected━Brownie, not to be confused with the brown troll carrying Armael━rushed forward, leaping off the downed lion while vigorously chucking his spear into the mouth of another oncoming lion.

Meanwhile, Noa had prepared aether for a white troll, the bleeding from his maimed shoulder apparent. The arm was still attached, but the entire shoulder was such a mess that it couldn’t have been fixed without magic.

System [Lesser Examination] level 27 → 28.

That wound was severe, far beyond Noa’s or Tin’s skillsets, at least not with such limited aether.

“Severe wound on white evolved troll at the front, Armael,” Noa called out, pulling out a second sapphire as the first one dulled.

“Good. Move on to the next one. Trolls!” Armael bellowed, sounding almost desperate. “Push forward, or we die! Half the slingers move to assist Spearmen. The rest protect the mothers and healers.”

“Bite on either side of Orange Troll’s right side,” Tin reported. “Eight open, moderate wounds.”

Noa turned his attention to the orange troll, pushing Aether against the wounds.

System [Lesser Appeal] level 45 → 46.

System [Mend] level 24 → 27.

System Class [Mender] level 24 → 25.

System Class [Mender] completed. Class [Comforter] available.

System [Aether Designation] → [Dual Aether Designation].

Noa wasn’t exactly sure what that last part meant, but he didn’t have the time to figure it out. Instead, he pulled out a third aether stone━an emerald━and listened to Tin’s next report, “Green troll with white markings, bite on the shin. Moderate severity.”

Just as Noa pressed aether to the wound, the troll jerked to his left, reaching out to push another green troll away from a pouncing lion. Noa froze as the lion clasped down on the troll’s upper arm, his [Lesser Appeal] already cast.

System Direct [Mend]?

Yes or no?

The lion shook its massive head, the troll howling. Under the troll’s pain, Noa could hear the bones crushing, echoing through the cavern like trees cracking in a thunderstorm, or stones trembling from an earthquake. Even Noa’s very bones shuddered at the sound, and his stomach plummeted as the troll’s arm was ripped from his body, the lion’s maw treating Greenie like nothing more than a ragdoll.

“A-Armael!” Noa stuttered, pointing at the troll with his finger.

Greenie bellowed, her pain invigorating her cry. Spear in her only remaining hand, she stabbed the bronze beast before her, once, twice, thrice! She whipped around, the sight of her missing arm gruesome as it was left bleeding, entirely unattended. That didn’t stop the thunderous troll as she stabbed a second beast, shoving the animals back towards the larger cavern that lay ahead.

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Paving a path, the evolved trolls followed after, the caverns rumbling with their war cries.

They were utter, glorious monsters of their own kind.

Damnit Noa, get it together! he thought, bellowing out his own cry as he tossed aether at Greenie’s missing arm. He’d worked on a missing limb before, he knew that little by little he could stop the bleeding. The surface area was far too large, impossible to cover.

Then a second strand of aether joined the first.

Huh, when could he see others’ aether?

No, it’s mine! Noa realized. He, in his weak, almost girlish warcry (compared to trolls), had pulled two strands. Designating them both to physical aether, or whatever the hell it was called, he cast [Lesser Appeal].

System [Lesser Appeal] 46 → 47.

System Direct [Mend]?

Yes or no?

Answering this time, Noa slowed the bleed, the troll pushing onward, enough that Mama Troll started forward. Greenie, by miracle of... Jildas? had managed to free them of the bottleneck, and lead them out into a wide, circular cavern, sunlight seeping in from holes high in the ceiling.

System [Mend] level 27 → 32.

System Aether depleted.

“Damn!” Noa hissed, pocketing his emerald. He’d only managed to just barely stop the worst of the bleeding. “Armael!” he called, looking back at his mentor for help with the wound, furrowing his brow as the man looked hyper focused on what was behind them. Noa turned, seeing his golden shield being bashed by five lionesses. The few slingers guarding the back looked terrified.

“Curse you, kid! Just heal like you won’t be seeing tomorrow!” Armael barked.

Noa snapped his head back to the spearmen at the front, still fending lions off. He pulled out his final aether stone, the only ruby Armael allotted him, and held to it tightly. It was, in a way, perhaps his only lifeline.

Now, where did Greenie go? Scanning his eyes over the battle, Noa frowned. It shouldn’t be hard to lose a giant green troll with one arm, right? Yet, she was just gone. Not even lying on the ground.

Just move on! Noa chided himself. “Tin, next report!”

“I’m out of aether!” Tin called.

Holy, freaking, graaaagh! Noa hissed, Elorn, help?

He threw aether at an evolved troll, casting [Lesser Examination] on the lacerations on a green troll’s back.

System [Examination] level 28 → 29.

The wound, despite its appearance, wasn’t considered moderate or severe. Not exactly superficial either, sort of a place between━minor. Huh, that was a new type of report. Either way, he decided the wound wasn’t worth worrying over. Best to preserve aether.

Wait.

Green evolved troll? White markings? Noa hadn’t seen that one before, and she had two arms.

That was so unbelievably unfair. Trolls could regrow limbs when they evolved? And Noa missed it!

“Healer!” Chief called, hauling a full sized gray troll from the battle over a stony ridge straight ahead. She jumped down from the ridge, stone slingers closing the ranks behind her as a last line of defense.

“I have to drop the shield,” Armael said. “Chief, can you spare spearmen!”

“No, save for myself. Our slingers here will suffice.” The golden troll barreled forward, spear in hand as she leapt past the slingers. Armael dropped the shield, releasing the lions from the tunnel, but not before Chief managed to utilize the bottleneck to face only two trolls at a time with the support of three slingers, albeit, one of them pregnant.

“Get your head together, kid!” Armael barked.

Oh, crap, Noa thought, turning his head back to the gray troll. Indigo blood was smeared across his chest, but the massive gashes there were already closing from Armael’s power. The gray troll rolled to his feet, face scratched across one side and left shoulder bitten into, yet he turned to look at Chief with wide red eyes.

No weapon in hand, he ran towards Armael, leaping off a boulder to the left. For a moment, a long, bloodied moment that Noa spent trying to track the man’s marred shoulder with aether, the troll flew. Somehow, like he could tell the future, the massive stony being wrapped his arm around the neck of an oncoming lion as it flew over the stony wall from behind Armael. Together, they went to the ground.

Noa spread the aether across the wound, worry splayed across his face as he watched the troll wrestle the beast. The only thing he could do was give Gray a leg up by healing his bad shoulder.

System Direct [Mend]?

Yes, damnit!

System [Mend] level 32 → 33.

The wound healed and the troll hammered the beast with his now relieved left arm, punching until the thing was plenty dead.

Gray glowed, his form shifting.

“Noa, take care of Chief. My guardian, get me a better vantage point of the battlefield on that boulder. You, Newly Evolved, with me!” Armael pointed at Gray, and his brown troll carried him to the oversized boulder Gray had jumped from.

Meanwhile, Mama Troll, curling her hands into fists, turned towards the cave. Noa shifted to see Chief better. The golden troll was, erm...

What was the word?

Glorious.

She leapt over a lion, lodging her spear into its spine with a fierce battle cry. Yanking it out, she let it collapse, leaping against a cave wall in an entirely inhuman maneuver. Kicking off it, she thrust her spear towards a fourth lion, having taken care of three already. Her spear grazed across its side, hardly drawing any blood, and the lion slipped past her.

It soared from within the bottleneck, Noa jumping with a yelp as it landed right on the nearest stone slinger to Mama Troll and him. The beast’s jaw unhinged, and it jolted towards the blue slinger’s head.

“Meet Jildas, fat kitty!” Mama Troll bellowed, throwing her left fist at the creature’s head. Noa shivered, bones snapping, and he wasn’t sure if it was Mama Troll, or the lion that was injured, but he assumed the latter when the bronze “fat kitty” didn’t get back up. For good measure, the pregnant woman bellowed a warcry at the lion’s corpse, one that forced Noa to cover his ears.

Pulling two strands of aether, as he had once before, Noa cast [Lesser Assessment] on both trolls. It was a little harder to designate two separate strands at a time, perhaps because they were on two different people━something he would have to experiment with later, he noted.

System [Lesser Assessment] level 22 → 25.

Mama Troll was hardly even bruised. The blue troll, who Mama Troll helped up, rightly howled in pain. Both her shoulders were broken.

Doing one shoulder at a time with two aether strands stretched around it, Noa cast [Lesser Appeal] twice. He noted, however, that on a troll, he was going to have to do that at least thrice more to completely heal a bone of that size.

System [Lesser Appeal] level 47 → 48.

System [Mend] level 33 → 37.

As he pulled more aether, the entire cavern quaked, enough to knock Noa to the bottom of the basket, grasping his ruby like it was his life line.

“Take cover!” Armael yelled, the ceiling falling away.

Noa gulped, trembling as a stone narrowly missed his basket. Mama Troll, blessedly, was far faster than he’d ever could have been, dodging a second stone.

As the ceiling further broke away, sunlight blinding, Noa could just barely make out a silhouette. Was that... Scar? There was something on the beast’s back, looming down at him. Noa could feel the stare, burrowing down into his soul.

Then it touched his mind. Noa gasped, feeling the being, no, the human atop that beast, drilling into his head.

“Concede!”