My wounded hand protested as I drew my knife. Between my injured limbs and aching head, I was in no shape to continue fighting. Gritting my teeth, I laboriously started weaving my next spell anyway.
The opportunity to use the spell didn’t immediately present itself. Brutal and aggressive though these bats were, they weren’t without some intelligence. With many of their number injured or dead, they were growing more hesitant to press the attack. Instead, most of the monsters were latching onto the fallen titan. The pitiful moaning from the beast as it was eaten alive was probably going to be haunting my nightmares for a while.
I held my spell ready as my traveling companions slowly worked their way closer to my hiding place. They had to fend off another two attacks en route, but their combined efforts easily repelled the attacking monsters.
With another agonizing motion, I withdrew my spear from the impaled monster before me. The group of pale warriors split just enough for me to take my place in the middle before we made a cautious retreat.
I didn’t let go of my prepared spell until the shrieking of the bats was far behind us and the rain had mostly cleared away. Despite the protests from my eviscerated arm, I still didn’t dare put away my spear. Embarrassingly, I nearly used it to stab Matt when he approached me from behind.
Startled though he was by my reactionary aggression, a gentle smile soon returned to his bearded face. In his hands he held a roll of white fabric and a small jar. I didn’t understand what he planned to do with them until he pointed at my injured arm. The cloth was obviously bandages and the pot probably had some form of salve.
Slipping my spear through the straps of my bag, I started casting my water gathering spell. I needed to clean off my wounds before binding them, and the water from the spell was probably cleaner than anything else I would find. Liam seemed to have had the same idea as he stepped next to the man in red. Hesitantly he offered me his waterskin just before I finished my spell.
As water formed seemingly from thin air over my arm, the water skin fell from the thin man’s grip. Liam's face turned even paler as his jaw dropped. His reaction seemed rather extreme. The spell was one of the most difficult spells I knew, but I didn’t think it merited such a dumbfounded look.
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After thinking about it for a moment, I realized that it must have looked like I had created water from nothing but mana. As far as I knew, such a thing was impossible. Liam evidently held a similar belief.
Yet again, I dearly wished that I could actually talk to these people. I had no idea how to mime condensing water from the air. I could only give the flabbergasted man an apologetic look as I rinsed my arms. Matt didn’t seem to notice the exchange as he helped smear some pungent cream over my injuries.
As he helped wrap my wounds with the bandages, I marveled at the quality of the cloth. Not even the elders wore garments made from such fine cloth and these people were using it on something as lowly as bandages. The more I saw from these foreign villagers, the more amazed I became.
The strange metals, high quality fabrics, and powerful weapons implied that the technology of this village was far beyond that of my own. To take my mind off of the pain of my wounds, I tried imagining what other astonishing things I would find once we reached it.
Several marks later, Martin called for the group to come to a halt in a clearing. My regeneration had already started work healing my injuries, but my hand was still very tender. I was very glad that we were setting camp for the evening.
As the others started setting up their tents, I sat on a small boulder. Rather than work with the others, Salvador approached me after setting his pack down. He said something unintelligible as he gestured towards my borrowed bag. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, so I moved the pack towards him.
After digging around a bit, he pulled out a roll of fabric and some odd objects that unfolded into long sticks. Even after carrying the pack all day, I hadn’t had much chance to look inside my borrowed bag. I hadn’t known that I was carrying around an extra tent, but that was clearly what he was holding. That did explain the odd looks while I was setting up my shelter the night before.
I tried to help set up the tent, but I didn’t quite know where each of the sticks and pegs were meant to go. Salvador patiently explained the process, even though we couldn’t exactly understand each other's words. By the time we had the tent set up, I was fairly sure I understood the words for ‘stick’, ’peg’, and ‘here’.
The tent was much better than the crudely built shelters I had been sleeping in for most of the past month. Though I had spent many nights sleeping in the dirt, I didn’t enjoy it. Between the damp, uneven earth, uncomfortable plants, and crawling insects, I wasn’t going to miss it.
After helping Salvador set up his tent, the two of us joined the others by the fire.