Nash Alta

Adventurer Level: 9

Orc - Nulevan

The exploding cart caught me by surprise, thankfully I had quick recovery active because of the bandits. A new skill I picked up while training with Nick, and it does exactly as advertised. I was the first one up, my ears ringing and head swimming.

I shook the cobwebs out of my skull and checked myself over to make sure I was in one piece. Lucky, no shrapnel wounds. As I grabbed my swords up off the ground and sheathed them, I looked around. Everyone else was on the ground. Yulk was just behind where I'd landed, and I ran over to him first.

"Yulk!" I shouted as I shook him. "Wake up, brother. Tell me you're okay."

He didn't stir. Shit. I tried to get his robe off so I could check him for injuries. I wasn't able to get it off, but I was able to get it open. He was wearing a tunic with shorts underneath. Blood on his legs. I ripped his tunic apart to see if his chest was fine. No blood, and it was rising and falling to indicate he was breathing. I tore a strip off his tunic and bandaged the small wound on his leg.

I glanced up and saw Imlor trying and failing to help Nick stand. As I straightened up to go check on him, I heard someone behind me groaning. Instinctively, I drew my swords. My axe, being as cumbersome as it is, had been left in the cart. I spun and barely managed to block the first bandit's strike as the second bandit was standing up. I'd heard the second bandit, which had ruined the first's sneak attack. The other five were in no condition to fight.

The second bandit took a moment to get his bearings as I took a slash at the first one, which he dodged. He wasn't able to dodge the follow-up kick, though. He hit the ground and rolled backward, and I followed and slashed with both swords. The bandit dodged backward again, which is fine by me, I want to distance him from Yulk. The other bandit saw our conflict and lunged at me with his spear. I parried it, and blocked another strike from the first bandit.

"Yulk!" Nick shouted from behind me.

"Yulk's out cold!" I replied, swinging at the first orc again.

I hope he's just out cold. A coma would be terrible this far from town. I parried the spear again and rushed the bandit with the sword. He managed to block the strike to his throat, but wasn't able to avoid the slash across his gut. It went deep, and he fell to the ground holding his injury. I shut out his cries of pain as I turned my attention to the one with the spear. There's no need to worry about him getting back up, I know a fatal blow when I see it.

The bandit with the spear also knew a fatal blow by sight, and became more cautious. I darted forward, and he leapt back while jabbing at me with the spear. If he were any more skilled with his spear, I'd be in trouble. However, after the fourth time of him jumping back and trying to poke me, I was starting to get annoyed.

"Go to the hells, you bastard!" the bandit growled at me.

"Lead the way," I replied, slashing the tip off of his spear.

The bandit looked at his spear dumbfounded, and I took advantage of this to use another skill I'd unlocked. I activated thrusting throw, and my sword leapt from my hand and plunged itself into the bandit's chest. He gaze moved from his spear, to the hilt that was now attached to his chest, and then to me as he crumpled under the weight of death.

This particular skill had come to me after constantly throwing Nick's training weapon back to him. I don't think he even realized that I'd activated the skill. He probably believes I'm just good at throwing training swords directly at his heart. I walked over to the bandit and pulled my sword from its fleshy sheath.

I took this opportunity to examine the remains of the explosion and the other five bandits, which was a mistake. Even with all the death and destruction I'd seen before, the way their bodies were torn apart and contorted beyond recognition made my stomach churn. I turned away and closed my eyes, trying to think of anything else so that it wouldn't stick with me.

Food's a bad thought. No, let's think about relaxing at the training field. Staring up at the sky, watching the clouds go by. Nima by my side, giggling at something I said. Not even a joke, but she found it funny regardless. A good memory to blot out the bad.

"Help!" an unfamiliar voice called out from behind me.

I turned to look and saw the dwarf we'd ran past earlier, now kneeling over Nick. Imlor was also on the ground. I wiped my swords on spear-bandit's pants and kicked Yulk's shoe as I passed, but he didn't even stir. Gods, he's out for the count. I hope he's alright.

"What's going on?" I asked the dwarf as I approached.

"The gnome was hit and bleeding out, and the... uh..."

"Human."

"Human? What?"

"He's a human. That doesn't matter though. Focus up, what happened?"

"Oh, he uh... I guess he figured out how to use healing magic. He used it on the gnome and then passed out. He's wounded pretty bad, looks like he was hit by a bunch of shrapnel," the dwarf explained.

I knelt and checked the boy's wounds, and the dwarf was right. He had a hole clean through his right hand, another hole in his shoulder, two in his left leg and one in his right leg. I couldn't find any holes in his cuirass, though. I breathed a sigh of relief.

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"He'll be fine," I said.

"How can you say that? If he lost enough blood to pass out, then he definitely won't be fine. We gotta do something!"

"Look at the ground. There isn't nearly enough blood here to cause someone his size to pass out," I explained. "Plus, our healer is down for the count. Ain't a damn thing we could do even if we wanted to."

"We could bandage his wounds, at least," the dwarf muttered.

"Nope, with Nick that's a bad idea. I'll show you why," I grinned. "Hey, Ten. You there?"

"Yes," Ten said with Nick's voice.

The dwarf leapt back from the boy with startling speed. He didn't get far before he stumbled and landed on his ass, staring at Nick with an open-mouth frown. Nick, however, didn't move at all. After a moment, the dwarf turned to look at me again.

"Ten is a robot that lives in Nick's head and helps heal him," I explained.

"I'm not a robot," Ten said.

"Close enough. Anyway, he's got foreign objects in some of his wounds, doesn't he?" I asked.

"Yes."

"And it would be a bad idea to bandage those wounds while you try to heal them, right?"

"Correct, if you bandage the wounds it would prevent me from removing the shrapnel. I would have to heal around it, and I would then have to force the shrapnel out of the body through the skin. Which would take an annoyingly long time without surgical assistance."

"There you have it," I said to the dwarf. "All we can do is wait for our injured to wake up. Nick healed Imlor, Ten's healing Nick, and Yulk doesn't have any visible injuries. He's probably got one hell of a concussion though."

"I... I see..." the dwarf said, starting to shake off the shock.

"Anyways, I'm Nash. What's your name?"

"My... Oh. I'm Renv. Renv Marfix. Pleasure to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances."

"Yeah, me too," I chuckled darkly. "So what were you doing out here, Renv?"

"My uncle owns one of the biggest suppliers in Bolisir, and I was transporting mining equipment to Kirkena for him. Shovels, picks, buckets, and some bang-clay. Recipe C," he explained. "The bandits weren't interested in the gear, but were convinced they could get a good ransom out of me."

"Well, that explains the explosion. But that sounds like pretty valuable cargo, why didn't you have guards?" I asked.

"I did. Three of 'em. The bandits killed them and tossed their bodies in the cart," his expression went dark. "They were friends of mine. We grew up together, but they became adventurers and I became a businessman. Now they're... They're dead."

"Sorry for your loss," I said gently. "I know how hard that is. I've lost some friends rece..."

Nick suddenly sat up as if he were in the middle of a fight, and then winced at the pain his various injuries caused. He looked around in an odd way, as if glad his eyes were working. He looked at Renv, then at me, and then closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"You alright?" I asked.

"Yeah... yeah I'll be okay. I just..." he looked at Renv again. "Never mind. I'm fine, just used all my magic. How's Imlor?"

"He's out, but looks alright. Yulk's out too."

"He's not up yet? Wait, how long was I out?"

"Just a few minutes," Renv said. "I'm Renv, by the way. Didn't get a chance to make introductions with all the excitement."

"I'm Nick," the boy replied. "Nice to meet you."

They discussed how we had got to be where we are, but I was distracted by Yulk. He'd been out for a while. He'd probably taken a knock on the head, but I hadn't seen any blood. I wondered about trying to load Yulk and Imlor into the cart, but the hnarses looked angsty. The explosion had probably put them on edge, and a kick from one of them would be bad no matter who it connected with.

"Nick, has your magic recharged at all?" I asked.

"Lemme check," he closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. "Yes, I've got about a quarter of it back."

"I want you to heal Yulk. Can you move?"

"Not on my own. Ten says my leg's fractured."

"Alright."

Nick looked up at me questioningly as I stood and brushed the dirt off of my knee. I grinned as I leaned down, placed my arms beneath his armpits, and lifted him from the ground. He protested a bit as I carried him over to Yulk's still unconscious form, and winced as I set him down.

"Heal him," I said.

"What's wrong with him?" Nick asked.

"I don't know. Probably took a knock to the head. Just cast the spell and let it figure it out."

"I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."

"I'm pretty sure it is. You think healers have time to figure out what's wrong with a person before they heal them?" I asked angrily.

"But... Fine," he relented. "Laeh Ronim Tsac."

A faint light glowed around Nick's hand as the spell went to work on Yulk. I crossed my arms in satisfaction, but raised an eyebrow as I noticed the light didn't fade like it normally would. The spell was still going. Whenever Yulk or other healers cast a healing spell, the light would only last for about a second.

Before I could say anything, Yulk's eyes shot open and he sat up. Nick let his arm drop to his side as Yulk looked around trying to figure out what was going on. Finally, my brother looked at us and tilted his head questioningly.

"You got knocked out by an explosion from the flaming cart," I explained.

"Then I healed you," Nick added with a grin.

"You healed me?" Yulk asked with a shocked expression. "I... Well, congratulations on unlocking your first healing spell! Which was it?"

"Minor Heal," Nick said.

"Good, good. That's the first level of healing," Yulk nodded, rubbing the back of his head as if it were sore. "Nice place to start from. Is everyone okay?"

"I'm fine, Nick's got some new holes, and Imlor's unconscious," I explained. "The dwarf that we rescued, Renv, is also uninjured."

"I see. Where'd the flaming cart go?"

"Already told you. That's what blew up. It had bang-clay in it."

"Right, that makes sense," Yulk said as he carefully stood up. "Shall we go check on Imlor, then?"

"I can't walk, I've got a fracture in my leg," Nick explained.

"Not a problem," I said with a grin as I picked him up again.

Yulk and I walked over to Imlor as my new baggage protested again. The protests got a little more colorful this time, so I was less gentle when I set him down. Nick glared at me angrily as Yulk knelt to check on the gnome.

"Will he be okay?" Renv asked.

"Hmm..." Yulk expressed as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What happened to him?"

"A piece of shrapnel went through his gut, but he didn't notice it at first. He passed out as he was checking on me," Nick explained. "Thankfully, it went clean through so I cast minor heal on him, but he didn't wake up. Then I ended up passing out from using all my magic."

Yulk looked at Nick with a confused expression.

"What else did you use your magic on?" he asked.

"Nothing," Nick answered.

"But you have a ton of magic. Minor heal wouldn't even come close to using all of it," Yulk said.

"I used the spell until I ran out of magic," Nick explained.

"How many times did you cast it?"

As Yulk asked that, I made a connection between what Nick was saying, what Yulk was asking, and the strange length of time I'd seen from Nick's healing spell. I couldn't help but laugh, which made everyone look at me.

"When he cast minor heal, it seemed to last longer than when you cast it," I explained. "I think he's able to continue the spell with just one cast."

"Is that so?" Yulk turned back to Nick. "I wonder what sort of effect that has on the healing."

"I don't know much about magic," Renv interrupted, "but is the gnome going to be okay? He's been out for a while."

"Right, right. He must have lost a bit of blood, but I can wake him up," Yulk nodded.

Yulk then slapped Imlor across the face, the sound of which stunned the rest of us into silence. It seemed to echo around us. Nick opened his mouth, but Imlor mumbled something and his eyes fluttered open. He looked at each of us and sat up, holding the side of his face.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Come on, get up," Yulk smiled down at the gnome. "It's time to get back on the road."