For the love of the Watcher's Tits that child can yell, Ulric thought. His reprieve had lasted about long enough for his legs to collapse and now, this. Groaning, he forced himself to his feet and entered the shelter to find the child crouched in a corner gnawing at the bindings on his hands. Ulric had left the bindings in place and even secured them, by a long leader line, to the wall of the shelter because he was fairly certain that he'd pass out soon and he hadn't wanted the child to bolt. Or murder him in his sleep thinking he was a partner to the thugs.
"Easy there, lad." Ulric said, as gently as he could manage. He held his hands up and approached the child without haste, speaking softly and slowly, calming nothings to show he meant no harm.
The child pulled his mouth from the bonds long enough to spit at Ulric, successfully, and then returned to attempting to savage them with his teeth.
Ulric noticed that the boy's nose had been badly broken and was leaning sideways against his cheek. Mouth occupied as it was the boy was in clear agony breathing heavily through the broken nose and mouth between bites.
Trying to avoid moving suddenly or any faster Ulric crouched down just out of reach of the elf waif and tried speaking to him again.
"I won't hurt you child, and neither will the ones who captured you." Ulric didn't know how much he needed to spare the sensibilities of a child, but then, he'd never had a talent for coddling feelings and hadn't developed one while hunting beasts in a magical wood either, so he continued bluntly "I killed the men, what didn't get killed by the monsters they fought, and took you back to my camp. I have no fellowship with them, nor anyone of this world."
"You have been injured and I will try to help you, if I am able. I will also keep you safe and return you to your people, if I am able, but you will have to guide me. I have seen no other men nor any of your folk and I know only the glade in which you sit."
None of this had influenced the vicious worrying of the boy's teeth on the binding and he was looking at Ulric with a wide eyed panic which widened further to terror when Ulric drew his bone knife.
Taking the elf's wrist quickly, pulling arms out straight up to avoid being bitten, Ulric ignored the kicking feet and slid the knife between the wrists to slice the rope holding them. Having freed his rescued dependent, Ulric released him and stepped back, crouching again to try to show his goodwill.
Panting but now slightly calmer the elf's hands rubbed over his wrists, removing the remnants of the lashing and working the blood back into hands tied too long and too tightly. Ulric merely watched quietly, letting the boy adjust to the situation at his own pace.
After a few minutes, Ulric slowly reached his hand into his belt pouch, producing a piece of dried [Forest Lord]. He held the piece out to the boy, gently prodding it in his direction.
"Go on, boy, take a bite of food and rest. You've had a rough time but it's safe here." As safe as it could be anywhere in the towering Forest of Yore, Ulric thought.
It took a few minutes patient wait for the child to accept that Ulric wasn't trying to hurt him but he eventually capitulated. Darting forward he snatched the food when he thought Ulric wasn't paying attention and devoured it rapidly, barely chewing. He likewise took the next piece Ulric had offered, but only after a minute’s watch. This went on for a solid half hour, the elf "stealing" a piece of food and staying in his corner, and Ulric talking softly, explaining that this place was his home, the boy was inside a shelter, and that no beasts would come through without provocation.
A good few pieces of food later, the boy seemed satisfied that he'd eaten enough. When Ulric offered a water bag from his belt the elf's eyes went wild and he drained the entire thing, losing about half of it to scatter on and around his body. Gooseflesh dimpled the child's skin and Ulric realized with a start that he'd forgotten to cover the child. Not everybody was fine with romping around the woods in the buff for weeks.
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Reaching over to his bed, Ulric pulled one of the [Bolt Deer] hides off and moved to the child.
Frozen in place, the elf didn't move while Ulric draped the blanket over his shoulders. Waif looked ready to try to make a break for it for a moment but decided against and merely settled back into his corner, blanket blocking most of the chill from that dousing. As the lad dried off and warmed Ulric went to the fire, stirred the coals and built up a great roaring fire. He knew well how the cold could seep into the bones out here under the canopy. He'd spent the better part of two weeks naked after arriving on this world, after all.
It seemed like the elf youth finally came to a decision that Ulric was not going to kill and eat him. He carefully stepped over to the fire, blanket worn like an overlarge cloak, and sat next to it, letting the heat soak into his body. Neither had much to say then and they sat watching flames dance until large sticks had burned down to coals. Ulric was fairly sure the kid had fallen asleep sitting up. He knew he had for several moments, mana exhaustion was hard on the system.
It wasn't his imagination Ulric mused, the continued use of mana to exhaustion was building up his core, analogous to muscles growing in response to heavy lifting, he could, without a doubt, use more mana than he could in those early weeks. He'd only been able to use three, maybe four spells without running dry, even when the spells were of moderate strength. Today he'd blasted that ogre warrior about as hard as anything he'd ever cast without using [Core Capacitor] and had then used about every spell he had to take down the Wolven, including an [Overcharge]'d [Voltaic Grip].
It had been worth it to fight the warrior that way. Dangerous, but he needed to learn to fight enemies that had the capacity for thought. It was a little disappointing that his first contact was with thugs worse than the monsters but, at least, he knew that people were people all over the whole sonofabitching universe.
Anyway, he refocused, trying to analyze the fight. Trying to dissect why he'd responded as he had and how his choices had played out. After seeing the child there'd been little in the way of a plan or grand strategy. He'd known he was well hidden, he'd escaped the notice of the monsters, far better hunters than those men, likely. He'd had the advantage of both height and range, especially after both ranged warriors got slagged early by the [Venom Bolt Viper]. And he'd felt, part of his brain calculating coldly while the rest of him got pissed, that he held the dominating position in the fight. Warrior's instincts, indeed.
The bow was a miracle, his hours of practice over the weeks since he'd completed it well worth the time. Three enemies out of the fight in a matter of fifteen seconds and two of them from complete stealth. Another forced into a reckless charge to close distance, setting himself up for getting incinerated in the open. It was only at the last that Ulric had been in any true danger. He'd have been concerned about a magic user had any of them demonstrated any such ability while fighting the monsters. But none had and it seemed a good chance they'd not have held back against such foes.
Fighting the Beastman hadn't been too much risk, he decided. Ulric had the distinct advantage of magic and that was a hell of an edge. It had turned out that the marauder had been able to crush his [Wind Blade] and that made his [Ice Blade] a liability, even with all the durability enhancement he'd spent time building into it. Maybe such spells just weren't worth the effort of casting. Good to learn that now, rather than against an enemy even more dangerous.
Combining spells had been something he'd tried by instinct. If the spells had fizzled out it would have indicated that magic could destructively interfere with itself after formation. Now he knew magic could be used to amplify itself post spell creation. The combination of Infrig and Incindere was a bit of an inspired risk. Taking advantage of the difficulty of defending yourself from steam, something which Ulric had experienced in his previous life. He'd witnessed an incautious colleague breach a steam channel, having failed to depressurize the line. A helicopter had transported the man to the nearest trauma unit and he'd lost most of the right side of his face, if none of his sense of humor, since he'd changed his name, legally, to Harvey Dent. Steam was nasty stuff. Thermodynamic energy dump, from a highly conductive material with incredible specific heat, from vapor to liquid, shedding tens of thousands of kilojoules of energy in a moment. That the Beastman hadn't been totally blinded indicated a highly robust physiology. Or that his spells weren't as strong as they looked. No way to know for sure without much more testing.
That didn't apply to lightning. Once again, [Voltaic Grip] had proved itself to be a terribly effective weapon. Ulric knew, first hand, the power of lightning. He'd been struck as a seventeen year old idiot. Hanging out with friend, daring a thunderstorm, they'd been running from a porch to a lone Oak in a field. Not three steps from the Oak on his return trip lightning had hit the Oak and had blasted Ulric into unconsciousness. He woke up a week later in the hospital. One of the group had been planning to be an EMT and had taken first responder classes. If she hadn't done CPR until professionals arrived he'd have died there in that field.
A body made mostly of water, operated mostly by ion flows, was particularly susceptible to a fuck load of current driven at high potential. It required him to get in close and maintain contact with both hands, but the destructive power had been enough to cook a monster he had no business even thinking about taking on. It had killed that Beastman pretty much instantly, although that also had to do with him knowing exactly where to position that current flow to disrupt the heart's auto-rhythm. Decades since his anatomy course work but something-something Purkinje fibers and AV nodes. Still. Hell of a tool for calming down hostile animals.
Speaking of which, the elf kid looked like he might be waking up.