For a moment, everyone was frozen in shock. The razor stalker had hidden itself back in the grass, and the three remaining members of the group were staring at where it had just been.
Symon was the first to react, sprinting towards where the fallen member had landed. The high arc he'd travelled in after being thrown through the air meant there was no convenient path through the vegetation to him, but Symon just bulldozed through the thick grass. To their credit, the others quickly followed behind him, keeping an eye out for the stalker as they rushed after the injured man.
At least, Symon hoped he was just injured. Those blade arms were big, and both of them had gone all the way through that guy's torso. If this were Earth, Symon would have expected the victim to be already dead, but with the benefit of magical skills and constitution enhancements, he had no idea what he'd find.
They quickly found the fallen man. He was in better condition than Symon had feared but worse than he'd hoped. His white robe had two large, rapidly expanding splotches of bright red on them, and he was lying on his back letting out a wet wheezing sound.
Symon bit his lip as he glanced down at the injuries, worrying over what he should do. His healing might be able to stop the man from dying, but there was no way he'd be in fighting condition after. If he did that, Symon wouldn't have any vitality left if -- or more likely when -- the razor stalker returned. Plus, they'd still be down one fighter. Of course, there was another possibility...
But no, Symon wasn't that type of person. His dream had always been to save lives, and he didn't think he would ever forgive himself if the first time someone was in need of him, he just sacrificed them to improve his own chances. Mind made up, he crouched down as close as he could get to the man without putting him in range of his draining magic.
A man behind him said something in their language, the words containing lots of "oo" noises. He had no clue what was being said, but looking back he saw the man with a confused expression on his face, probably wondering who Symon was and what he was doing. He was wielding a spear and shield but wasn't posturing threateningly, seeming to understand that Symon was trying to help. Behind him stood two people; a man with a short sword in one hand and what looked like a big staff strapped to his back, as well as a woman with two long curved daggers.
All of them had dark brown skin and white robes over some type of armour -- just leather for most of them, but the guy with the shield also had a chain mail vest. They were all fit and had more than their fair share of scars.
All three of them were staring at Symon.
"Keep watch! Zaltei!" Symon barked out, using what he hoped was their word for danger as he pointed to the grass around him. The lead man nodded before saying something to his compatriots, and they quickly made a circle around Symon and the fallen man before slashing at the grass in an effort to deprive the razor stalker of hiding places. They seemed to know how to handle themselves, although he wasn't sure why they were so willing to follow the orders of a complete stranger.
His safety as secure as he could reasonably make it, Symon refocused on the injured man. Both blades had entered through the right side of his chest and stomach, curving to come out of his front. The wounds were still gushing blood, and even in the short few moments he'd been communicating with the others, the wheezing breaths had grown noticeably weaker. He was wearing that same leather armour as the others, but his had a metal breastplate too — the blades had initially completely avoided it by hitting from the side, and had dented the armour outwards where the exit wounds were.
Moving closer, his draining magic automatically stretched out to finish off the stalker's victim, but Symon was expecting this and redirected the thread to the grass around him. It wouldn't take long for him to kill off all the nearby grass, and when that happened he wouldn't be able to stop his ability from pulling out the man's life force. Without wasting any more precious time, he placed his hands over the entry wounds and squeezed his eyes shut.
He'd never consciously channelled his healing magic, let alone used it on another being, so he simply gave in to his instincts. The vitality swirled around in his vessel a few times before pulsing outwards through his body, flooding through him as it looked for anything to fix. He focused the energy towards his hands, which came easily enough. They felt all tingly and warm, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Like a hydraulic press, his will slowly forced the vitality further and further, concentrating it towards his fingertips.
With a final mental push, he felt some of his vitality seep out into the air. He couldn't physically see it, and he lost all connection to it after it left his body, so he wasn't sure if it worked.
The injured man — actually, Symon quickly downgraded him to the dying man — was still rapidly worsening. The vitality seemed to dissipate uselessly the second it left Symon's body.
Glancing at the nearby grass to check the rate it was being drained, Symon estimated he had only one more chance before he wouldn't be able to approach the man without draining him. He had an idea; it wouldn't be pleasant for either of them but it would be better than dying.
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With a grimace, Symon pushed his fingers into the open wounds on the man's side. He writhed slightly in pain, but was too weak to fight Symon off. Someone shouted something, but he ignored it. Once more, he focused the vitality into his fingertips before forcing them out into the wound. The man relaxed slightly, but Symon wasn't sure if that was because the healing was working or because he was on death's door. Knowing that he'd need to use all his vitality to give this man even a chance of survival, he pulled all he had from his vessel and forced it into the wounds.
Symon let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding, scrambling backwards to ensure his magic wouldn't just rip all the vitality back out. The man was blissfully unconscious, and truthfully his wounds didn't look much different. His healing had worked — stemming the bleeding from a torrent down to a bare trickle -- but hadn't been able to do much else, at least visually. Hopefully, it had also worked against any internal bleeding, but only time would tell.
Looking up, the others had made excellent progress on clearing out a safe area — the whole healing process had only felt like a few seconds to Symon, but must have been longer in reality. They'd arranged themselves in a triangle around Symon and the wounded man, looking outwards for the threat. The leader of the group — the one with the spear and shield — glanced back at Symon, his eyes and mouth opening in an expression of surprise as he stared at the injured man.
He must have thought his friend was done for...
He said something to Symon with a questioning tone, to which Symon gave a thumbs up. Upon realising that this probably didn't translate, he instead gave the man what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
The dying man was saved, or at least had his death temporarily delayed, but Symon wasn't sure what the next step should be. Thankfully, the leader pointed to the wounded man, pointed back the way they'd come from, and then said something. Keelgrave chose this moment to interject.
"I'd hope we could keep him still, but it's probably safer from the razor stalker back at camp. Uh, how do I say that?"
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They were only a dozen metres away from the start of the clearing that contained their camp, so the leader hadn't had any trouble picking Atabek up by his collar with a single hand and marching back. Symon cringed at the lack of a stretcher or something similar to transport the wounded man, but this was at least better than leaving him to be eaten by that monster.
There wasn't a single sign of the stalker, including from Keelgrave and his as of yet unexplored ability to sense strong sources of life. It had only attacked Atabek when he was separated from the group, which could have explained why they were unbothered on their short but tense trip back.
What was more confusing was why the stalker hadn't attacked Symon earlier — he'd been alone basically the whole time and would have made for a much easier target, being unarmoured and mostly unarmed. Hopefully he wouldn't have to worry about that in the future though; the group seemed impressed enough by his healing that he doubted they'd try to send him off on his own or something.
The suns were still up, so he tried to strike a balance between staying close to the group and keeping his distance from the uncomfortably warm campfire. How could they all get so close to it?
At first, conversation was difficult with the group. As it turned out, Keelgrave hadn't even heard of their native language, let alone known how to speak it. They did share a language in a form of a widespread trade pidgin, the de facto lingua franca of this world. Symon found it pretty unoriginal that it was simply known as 'Common'. The leader, Aslan, was the only member of the group who could hold a proper conversation in Common, although the others all knew at least the basics. In Symon's case, Keelgrave simply translated for him, though he complained about it often and made Symon swear he'd learn it on his own.
It felt a little strange to stand around a campfire facing outwards, but it was necessary to keep a look out for the stalker. The monster was incredibly fast, but they'd cleared a large enough area of grass around the small camp that it shouldn't be able to sneak up on them. Speaking of, their camp was simple but still much more comfortable than what he'd had previously. They'd given him an extra serving of the surprising tasty stew after he'd devoured the first in an instant, and also let him drink deeply of their waterskins. It was warm and metallic, but it might as well have been pure spring glacier water after two days of marching through the sweltering desert.
They'd even given him one of their spare white robes, which they'd explained was coloured as such to reflect the suns' rays. He almost felt they were being too nice to him, but he supposed he had warned them about the razor stalker at risk to his own life, and then saved Atabek's when he'd been attacked. It made sense they'd be grateful, although he still felt a little guilty about accepting so much from people who didn't have that much more than him.
They were all criss-crossed in scars -- the only woman of the group, Safiya, was even missing an eye — despite none of them being much older than him. They said they were from a tribe on a separate landmass, far off to the east. They were on a sort of coming of age journey, where they were meant to explore the world for a year and return home with a trophy from a mighty beast they'd slain, although Aslan confessed they'd been underpepared for the dangers of this desert.
Symon had informed the others, loosely, of how his healing worked. They took the fact that merely being in his presence was dangerous in stride, instead focusing on what they could do to help him heal Atabek further. Keelgrave had mentioned healing magic was fairly rare when they'd first met, but it was one thing to hear about it and another to see these strangers ignore so many red flags simply because of his miraculous healing.
Speaking of, the recipient of said healing hadn't changed much. He was still unconscious, and while his wounds had been bandaged, Symon wasn't sure he'd recover as is. The man apparently had an impressive constitution, but those scythe arms had gone through his chest and stomach. His stats were a big help in his continued survival, but judging by the many ugly scars over his body, a stronger than average constitution was not the same as proper healing magic — none of Symon's wounds had left even the slightest of marks on his body after being healed.
Night was rapidly approaching, and Symon wasn't confident Atabek would survive through it with a damn hole through his lung. They had to come up with a way of getting enough vitality before they were forced into hunkering down for the night, or else the man would die.
Symon wouldn't let that happen to his first patient in this new world.