Chương 21: Strength through adversity

A faint, gray light shimmered from within Kite as he sat meditating in the trio's chosen campsite for the night. As he opened his eyes, tentatively flexed his fists to feel his muscles tense up. There was a strength there, a slight increase which hadn't been there before, but as his abilities ranked up so did the connected attribute.

"It is a rather odd, if satisfying, feeling to actually be able to feel yourself become stronger. And faster." he said with wonder.

"I know, right? The heavens come closer every day now." Dragonfly acquiesced where she sat holding a meat skewer over the fire. They had the fortune to stumble upon a small pack of mountain boars during their outing, and had resolved to make the most of it. This meant a veritable feast of meat, of which their iron-rank bodies seemed to be able to eat more than before. They wanted to take every chance to eat warm food, as they suspected that there would be many days of only eating spirit coins ahead.

As always during their evenings, Serene was singing as she meditated. The wordless melody was a soothing addition to their evening rests as they had been working themselves quite hard lately. After finishing their final rituals of awakening back in Gilded, they had spent some time provisioning properly for an extended stay out in the wilds.

As winter was still covering the lands with frost during the nights, the trio had even pooled some funds to buy an enchanted tent big enough to comfortably house them during the nights. It had some basic enchantments to make it harder for those outside to detect auras inside, as well as to help ward off the elements and make some minor self-repairs. Kite and Dragonfly had taken the time to leave written updates for their mentors, with details of their development and when they expected to return to the city.

After all this was completed, they left Gilded together. The road and contracts awaited, adventure and camaraderie. And growth. After over a week on the roads, the group had already completed a few of the contracts in the nearby villages. While the two-star ones were the most interesting, they gladly took the chance to hunt any and all monsters in the postings. The concept of merging their complete power set into a unified whole had been driven into both Kite and Dragonfly by their experienced mentors.

One didn't survive too long as an outcast adventurer in the autumn lands if they weren't competent, and both Uncle Walker and Master Force had at least a bit of renown for their respective paths. That was why the trio took the opportunity to let Kite and Dragonfly take on certain contracts alone. While Serene had a few offensive capabilities, her path was still too oriented around supporting others to handle such threats on her own.

At the moment, Kite and Serene were the observers, their auras retracted and Serene's greater aura control helping them stay unnoticed. Dragonfly was busy facing down a surprisingly large pack of grymlings and their commanding brute. There had been twelve of the smaller monsters when they had begun, a number unseen by any of the three so far. Currently there was only five left. Dragonfly had plowed through the pack like an avalanche, using whirling and jumping special attacks to constantly stay in motion.

As soon as she struck even remotely clustered opponents, swathes of flame spread from her attacks to engulf them. While the direct damage was only middling, it left her foes burning. She had become quite practiced at dodging attacks that would risk staggering, grappling or otherwise leave herself vulnerable. The rest she simply let land, and she was covered in blood and claw marks.

Dragonfly wore only light armor, but her strength allowed heavier metal plating over vital areas to further increase the chances of suffering smaller, but more numerous wounds. The inner flame was stoked time and time again as she fought, increasing both her speed and power. In addition, she had effects that gave her increased damage reduction and health regeneration the more damaged she was. Due to her fighting style, potent self repair was among the most prioritized properties of any armor she would wear.

In her current state, every swing of her axe cleaved through the gyrmlings, sometimes even two at a time. She scattered their burning remains, apparently satisfied with dispatching the minions to go for the master. The brute had begun to move, but her speed allowed her to seize any and all initiative in this fight. As the beast struck down in a double-handed crushing slam, she simply leapt into the attack, her body flaring.

One of her more potent defensive options was a short lived dramatic increase in her damage reduction. Instead of being brutalized by the powerful attack, it only bruised her while pushing her downwards. As soon as her feet were firmly planted, she flexed her legs to shrug off the arms which tried to pin down. Her strength, enhanced both by her simple yet effective strength enhancing power and further increased by the number of hits taken, could easily shrug off the brute's strength and mass.

After that she finished the fight, as her axe took on an even fiercer glow, seemingly drawing power from her many wounds as motes of cinder flowed to it from all over her body. The upward swing that followed almost bisected the gyrmling brute before the rest of its body was ripped apart by the following jet of fire. She stood, breathing hard before straightening to chant a spell.

"Retrieve the sparks. Stoke the fires of life." The flames from the surrounding area and the burning wisps on the remains of the gyrmlings was all drawn into her, as her body healed at a rapid rate.

"Aaah, that's better." she sighed, stretching and enjoying the increased regeneration.

"Efficient work, Dragonfly. I believe these kinds of encounters do not challenge you overly much anymore. It is probably better to let Kite go at these kinds of encounters in the future." Serene praised, her voice a light breeze. The trio knew that they would eventually need to push themselves properly against enemies they were more ill equipped to face. Many of their abilities which had been with them the longest had recently seen a drastic lessening in their rate of improvement.

Kite hadn't thought it would be quite so early in their outing, but looking at the demolished pack of gyrmlings left little for debate.

"There sure were a lot of them." Kite remarked.

"But that isn't too surprising. The next surge should hit within two years, at least from what Uncle Walker said."

"That would put it almost exactly a decade from the last. I like that it is reliable, at least." Dragonfly said.

"We should definitely work hard to reach bronze before it arrives. That would let us join in the more interesting battles." she added, with a grin.

"Let us not get ahead of ourselves. There are a lot of verses left before the chorus." Serene chided with a smile. After a week and a half on the road, the group stood in front of a notice board. It was located in one of the many villages in the autumn lands whose principal industry was the processing of different types of lumber. Wood was plentiful in the expansive forested region, but these villages had cropped up where there were special, rare or magical varieties available.

One particular notice was of special interest to the trio, who stood debating whether to take on a particular challenge.

"The rune heron seems to be rather troublesome." Kite muttered as he was browsing the Magic Society's living document.

"But you did say it was fragile, right? It should be something we should be able to handle. We did take on a bronze-rank monster before, and now we are even stronger" Dragonfly argued. The subject of their discussion was a bronze-ranked monster which had been seen in the area. Known as a rune heron, it was a monster from a broad and surprisingly diverse subtype of monsters united by their rune-based magical abilities. Other known variants were the rune tortoise, rune spider and the almost mythic rune whale.

They also had variations across the different ranks. All of these monsters had magical abilities based on different kinds of magic runes. The rune heron had a certain kind of feathers with magical patterns, which it could launch to create a variety of magical effects. As a bronze-rank monster, the arsenal of different effects were much greater than any of the iron-rank specimens in the diverse monster family.

"I am worried about it being a flying monster." Kite murmured.

"Neither you nor I will perform at our best at range. But with Serene, we might stand a decent chance." He looked to his companions. Serene looked determined with a slight crease of worry, while Dragonfly looked more excited than anything else. He continued.

"But I feel that we ought to test our paths against it. And I have some ideas as to how." The rune heron had been sighted in the vicinity of the village, about an hour's walk away. It had apparently frequented the groves of copernica trees, one of the rarer types of wood in the area. While not inherently magical, it was a kind of wood which was almost stark white below its dark gray bark. This left it uniquely suitable for coloring with alchemical dyes to aesthetically pleasing results.

Fortunately for the workers in those parts, the rune heron was quite non-aggressive against normal ranked beings while very territorial against the more magically charged species. However, due to its wide range of magical abilities, it could wreak catastrophic havoc upon non-fortified settlements if it were allowed to remain until it reached its berserk state. As such, the trio had a simple plan to lure out the beast.

They found assistance in the villagers who went ahead and warned any workers in the area before Kite, Dragonfly and Serene made their way over. They planned their ambush a bit outside the grove of the valuable wood, as Dragonfly didn't want to accidentally cripple the local economy if the fight got out of hand. Kite was crouching in a tangle of bushes at the edge of the road that led to the grove.

The forest had been cleared enough for actual wagon traffic, which left a surprisingly wide open stretch of terrain as opposed to the norm in the Autumn lands. Dragonfly had a similar hiding spot closer to Serene, who stood in the middle of the road. The team had discussed different tactics, and had once more landed with an aura lure as they had done with the mourning revenants. Serene had volunteered as bait this time around, as they had to reach a larger area in the hopes that the heron would come to investigate.

"Ready?" Dragonfly called over to her.

"May the goddess sing of our victory after this." Serene said, tense but also with a slight expectant smile.

"It would seem that the timbre of your companions have begun to color your own, dear singer. You make a beautiful choir." a sublime voice sang in her mind. Feeling her goddess' presence, Serene smiled and began a song of her own. It was accompanied by her aura which unfolded like an unseen, ethereal flower. Kite was always in awe when he felt Serene's aura wash over him.

Its strength definitely rivaled that of many bronze-rankers, but also contained a richness which made his own seem like a painting consisting of only the outlines, devoid of color and substance. As she sang, it felt like the world stopped to listen. Soon, another cry echoed across the sky from the north. It was melodic in its own way, but also had a primal quality. Kite could see the rune heron approaching through the air along the open road in search of the invader it was sensing.

The rune heron was a huge, beautiful bird with the long neck and beak of its normal-ranked counterpart. It had a body the size of a heidel with a massive wingspan. The most striking aspect was the feathers. They seemed to glow in rainbow colors even in the full light of day as it glided toward Serene. As it got closed, Kite could even make out small colored dots on many of the feathers along its wings which he assumed were the famed runed feathers.

It gave off another cry of challenge as it steered straight toward where Serene stood, descending to fly around ten meters above the ground. As it approached, some small pinpricks seemed to light up along the underside of its wings before a hail of glowing, fiery projectiles was launched toward Serene. According to the plan, Kite was ready for this.

"Wall" he chanted as a wall of force sprang up in front of his friend. During his training with master Stone, they had thoroughly tested out his two barriers and their different qualities. His mentor had deemed his wall to be a more cost-effective use of Kite's mana against a hail of lighter ranged attacks. While the monster was bronze rank, each individual bolt of flame was rather weak which meant that the barrier held so far, even if cracks had begun to spread over its surface.

The heron was not dissuaded however, and was preparing another attack when Kite deemed it close enough to spring the second part of the trap. He stood from his hiding spot, trying to gauge the monster's trajectory as he leaned back and threw the javelin that appeared in his hand. It shot through the air with greater force than ever before, courtesy of Kite's increasing attributes, and looked as if it would strike true. Hope turned to dismay however, as the heron noticed the incoming projectile.

Instead of the glowing motes of light from before, a single strong white light shone, originating from its chest. A shockwave of force which shook the air and nearby trees burst from its form. Not only was the javelin deflected, but the resonating force blast from the bronze-rank heron broke the low-end iron-rank weapon into splinters which fell harmless to the ground. Kite winced internally and fought down a sense of loss as he saw the first item manifested by his ability suffer such an ignoble fate.

The mourning would have to wait however, as he sprang from his hiding place and began sprinting toward Serene. Fortunately, the ensnaring javelin was only the first surprise they had planned. A mere second after Kite threw his javelin, Dragonfly's axe was spinning through the air toward the closest wing of their foe. It looked not unlike a glowing disc of fiery judgment. Before even seeing the result, its wielder was jumping after it with her leaping power.

The heron banked to the side and even lower to the ground, narrowly avoiding the projectile and even getting low enough that Dragonfly would pass above her target. Fortunately for them, Serene was both the lure and the final part of their trap. While her companions had launched their attacks, she had been chanting a spell." Be swept away by the hammer of the hurricane" That particular spell created a wide torrent of very powerful winds from a point within its impressive range and Serene controlling its direction.

It did not differentiate between friend and foe however, complicating its use. Combined with the lengthy incantation, it required a great deal of timing from its caster. Fortunately for the group, Serene was very proficient at that particular skill, as would most of Song's clergy. Rhythm and timing was what held a choir and its harmony together after all.

It was this particular talent of hers that let the trio work very well together even though both Kite and Dragonfly were varying degrees of individualistic in their paths. As they had practiced together so far they had worked up a good deal of trust in Serene's judgment. Even when they specifically hadn't planned in advance, they trusted her to use her spells to the best of her abilities and capitalized on the opportunities she created for them. When they did have a plan, Serene could truly work wonders.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. In this case, the small hurricane Serene created was directed straight downward. She released the spell just as the heron was wobbling in the air while recovering from its dodge at the same time as Dragonfly was passing straight above it. As most avians, the rune heron weighed rather little in proportion to its size, which meant that not even its bronze rank resistances and attributes could keep it aloft.

It was slammed into the ground a couple of meters in front of Serene, as insult was added to injury when Dragonfly came crashing into its other wing. Due to Serene's impeccable timing, the gale had launched her downwards toward her target and she summoned a new axe while descending which promptly buried itself into the right wing of the creature, grounding it until it could recover.

Denying it the advantage of flight was only the first part however, as it was still a bronze-rank monster with a plethora of magical runes. Kite reached it just as the second phase of the battle began in earnest. He managed to cast his smaller barrier on Serene just in time to deflect a large conjured stone which flew through the air. At the same time, Dragonfly was dodging the long beak which struck out repeatedly against her.

Kite's barrier had let Serene back off to a more comfortable distance, and she used her smaller gust of wind to carry Kite the final meters and interpose himself between a staggered Dragonfly and the pecking beak. Deflecting two strikes on hastily conjured barriers, the heron flapped its wings to get some distance between itself and its foes. The injured wing prevented flight, but was not severe enough to hamper its functionality completely.

However, there was a consequence to the attacks beyond them just being deflected, as blue cracks seemed to run over its beak and partially up over its head as they leaked mana. WWJS: Kite Flown in on Winds of Fortune has absorbed [Awakening stone of the Wisp] You have awakened Barrier essence ability [Spiritual Futility] [Ability] Spiritual futility Special ability.

Cost: None Cooldown: None Current rank: Iron 2 Effect - Iron: Opponents who makes a melee strike against or come into contact with your barriers have some of their mana drained. The drain is continual if the opponent remain in contact with the barrier. Having been an ability not yet in the Magic Society's register, Kite had named it spiritual futility, its mana-draining capabilities feeling similar to his vortex.

The power was a convenient, passive addition to Kite's set of powers which gave him yet another vector to deprive his opponents of an important resource. Every strike deflected was now both damage avoided and mana lost for the opponent. The heron was not deterred, however. Even before landing, another set of glowing feathers created a sustained torrent of wind filled with oversized pine-needles.

Both Kite and Dragonfly received a myriad of small wounds before Kite brought up another wall which he started channeling mana into in an attempt to keep it up for longer. They could both feel Serene's aura starting to heal the multitude of injuries.

"This is perfect for me. Just a second!" Dragonfly shouted over the gale and sound of needles hitting Kite's barrier. Before he could ask more, she had stepped out from behind the wall. With a fierce inner glow, she activated her brief but powerful damage reduction, lowering the damage of the multitude of weak bronze-rank attacks to a manageable level. Her clothes and skin was still torn asunder, but the damage was only superficial.

Just before the increased damage reduction winked out, she dove back behind the wall. Her inner glow, which increased with every individual attack that damaged her, had gone from faint lumination to an inner bonfire. Steam rose from her whole body and Kite could see ripples of heat in the air as she exhaled and spoke.

"Wave. Now!" On the command, Kite chanted a spell and stopped channeling mana into the wall in front of them.

"Dissolve the patterns of power" The wave that was Ripple of Cancellation spread out before him, dissolving his wall and each of the small projectiles which collided with it. Dragonfly dashed after it, almost keeping up with the rippling wave as her speed had been greatly increased by the vast number of individual attacks which had struck her. While the monster was smarter than most iron-rank specimens, it was still a creature of instinct.

These instincts mostly consisted of trusting in the destructive force of its magic, which was why it too late realized that, while it had been channeling its magic, one particularly dangerous opponent had now gotten very, very close. Dragonfly tore into the creature's other wing with abandon, Kite right on her heels. He focused on keeping the monster distracted, using his barrier and walls to block its strikes and hinder its movements.

As Serene was constantly assisting them with healing spells and the enchantment which ramped up their damage while the heron was wildly discharging its runes, Kite quickly got the feeling that not just one, but two internal thresholds had been reached. The first made itself known as Sage, who as usual had hidden close to Kite's back previously during the fight, floated out and discharged a blue beam of disrupting force damage which punched through part of the heron's body.

Quite a lot of magical effects had left energy to be accumulated by the familiar, and the potency of the blast was nothing to dismiss even for the higher-ranked foe. The second was his latest addition, courtesy of the awakening stone of potency which he had found along with master Stone. WWJS: Kite Flown in on Winds of Fortune has absorbed [Awakening stone of Potency] You have awakened Negation essence ability [Potential of Stolen Power] [Ability] Potential of Stolen Power Special ability.

Cost: None Cooldown: None Current rank: Iron 2 Effect - Iron: Gather charges each time an effect is dispelled or mana is drained/destroyed. After a threshold is reached, use accumulated charges to give a potent boost to an ability, partially changing its scope and/or effect. The power was yet another one which accumulated potential as Kite fought, potential that he could spend to provide a potent boost to another of his abilities.

He had tried it together with all of his special attacks so far, and now went with the one that was Dragonfly's favorite. Summoning his greatsword, Kite swung in a diagonal slash. Instead of merely trailing the black tears in space, the void rifts flowed up and around the blade to extend several meters in front of it for the duration of the swing, Void-Sunders-Firmament being boosted to new heights.

Effective against multiple smaller opponents or larger monsters without robust bodies, the void-cleave carved through half of one flailing wing and partially through the creature's neck before winking out in the face of bronze-rank damage reduction. The monster reeled in pain, multiple runes flaring up across its body in preparation to unleash magical fury.

Fortunately for the adventurers, Dragonfly was not far behind Kite as her spinning finisher completed the decapitation of the creature, severing its head in a small explosion of fire.

"Potent indeed." Kite commented as he stilled before the twitching corpse of the beast while the glow of runes faded and Serene brought her song to a close. Kite turned to Dragonfly before he froze as she was walking up to him.

"What?" she asked, confusedly. Kite let his eyes wander down her body, then up again before giving her an appreciative smile. She looked down, only now seeming to notice that the veritable storm of bronze-rank needles had dealt quite extensive damage to her armor and clothing which did not heal as quickly as she herself did. With the exception of the scattered metal plates, she was left practically naked. Dragonfly looked down at her not at all relative state of undress before shrugging.

"Eh, it's nothing neither of you haven't seen before. Besides, I know that you quite like how I look." she finished with a wink toward Kite before turning to the monster.

"Weren't these feathers worth quite a bit? Let's get on with the looting ritual already!" Serene, who had been approaching them during their exchange, just shook her head at Kite with an exasperated smile. Kite began setting up the looting ritual, one of the many utilitarian ones which he had been taught by Auntie Crow. As its cost in materials and spirit coins wasn't negligible, he usually saved it for bronze-rank monsters where the payoff felt worth it.

Their victory over the rune heron had spurred the group's confidence, and they continued on their journey with renewed vigor. Fortunately, Serene was a good counterpoint to the eager Kite and the downright ecstatic Dragonfly which allowed them to keep their collective overconfidence at bay. They continued to clear as many contracts as possible, but kept a special lookout for appropriate bronze-rank ones or those of iron rank which would give them a particular challenge.

As always, the information on the contracts were unreliable at best, which had led to some less than pleasant surprises. In one such case, the group had been on the hunt for some ice elementals. It was an iron-rank contract, and had been off to an easy start as the group had found and dispatched a trio of the creatures which looked like crystalline, giant snowflakes which attacked through gusts of icy energies.

However, having beforehand researched the tendency of elementals manifesting in large numbers, they had determined to search the area thoroughly. This had led them to the trio carefully navigating into a rather wide crack that formed an uneven tunnel into a large cliff. The obvious snow-filled winds which seemed to flow out of the crack had been a rather dead giveaway that it would, unsurprisingly, lead to the place where the elementals were forming.

More surprising and concerning was what awaited them on the other side. As many times before, it was Serene's keen aura senses which saved them from stumbling straight into the trio of bronze-rank ice elementals, consisting of even more elaborate crystalline ice-shards than their smaller counterparts. They were surrounded by around a dozen iron-rank elementals, and only Serene's warnings had allowed the group to detect them and start their retreat before the bronze-rank monsters were upon them.

This led to their present situation, as Kite's shout of "Run!" had them scrambling back up through the frosty tunnel as they could all feel a palpable cold gathering behind them in the cavern inside the cliff. As they had looked up the monster beforehand, they knew that the bronze-rank ice elementals were able to fire even more devastating beams of frost. What was worse, they could combine said beam with others of their kind, even those of lower rank.

This meant that what the trio saw before turning to flee was the three huge elementals and the smaller form together into something akin to a magical formation, each sending blue-white pulses of energy towards a central point in the icy formation. Energy whose strength was growing rapidly, palpable even to the adventurers without special magical senses. It grew steadily as they ran, the air around them feeling eerily still.

Unfortunately for the trio, the tunnel was fairly straight which meant that whatever would be unleashed by the monsters would have little problem hitting them, and that there was nowhere to take cover. A more panicked part of Kite's mind urged him to activate his belt and charge ahead, but he dismissed it. He was the one with the barriers after all, and he was not alone.

"Serene! Hurricane!" Kite shouted as he ran behind his companions. If there was no cover, he would have to make some.

"Wall!" he shouted, as he split his conjured wall of force into five different pieces, with a few meters between them. He could hear Serene begin her chant as she ran.

"Be swept away b-" Her words were drowned out by the energy unleashed from below, and Kite knew he had to give her just a few more heartbeats. He could see the pale, blue torrent shooting toward them from the depths and almost breathlessly mouthed the incantation.

"Void." Kite felt a large amount of mana leave him as a sheet of nothingness appeared before him, like a hole in the world without bottom or end. This was the power awakened from the stone of the void. Expensive but powerful, it was a barrier capable of swallowing almost any attack, energy or other magical effects. It was active only for a short while, and effects of a higher rank seemed to overload the gate itself rather than the nothingness beyond, but it was a very effective defense in most situations.

If the need was really desperate, Kite could even use his racial gift [Steadfast channeler] to keep it active for longer but the cost of such a feat was precipitous. Only desperation should force such a choice, but standing before a unified attack by a trio of bronze-rank elementals and their minions would indeed be classified as such. WWJS: Kite Flown in on Winds of Fortune has absorbed [Awakening stone of the Void] You have awakened Barrier essence ability [Gate of Nihility] [Ability] Gate of Nihility Spell.

Cost: High mana Cooldown: 1h Current rank: Iron 1 Effect - Iron: Bring forth a short-lived wall of nothingness, up to five meters wide and three meters high. You have some control over the overall shape of the barrier. Any projectile or spell effect striking the wall is absorbed into the void and negated. Any being that comes into contact with the wall suffers a high amount of damage as they are forcibly ejected from the barrier. Attacks of higher rank may not be entirely negated.

The barrier cannot move once created and cannot be summoned into the space of any creature. Knowing that Serene needed only moments, Kite channeled everything he had into the final barrier. Where the first five had been scattered like newly fallen snow, the void gate stood fast as it swallowed the torrent. At least for half a second. Kite could see how the gate started blurring around the edges and felt his control slipping even further.

One more second passed, and just as the gate started to unravel, Serene finished her incantation.

"-y the hammer of the hurricane!" The wind originated just in front of Kite as the wild gale threw him toward the exit, his companions caught in it as well. For the duration of a breath, Kite flew through the tunnel formed by the crack as he was violently buffeted and scraped against the wall. During the moment of flight, he could see the pursuing frozen torrent. As they were thrown out of the opening mere moments before it caught up to them, Dragonfly and Serene barely escaping the icy wrath.

In that moment of slow clarity, Kite had realized that he would not get out in time. He barely had the time to send a thought to activate his potent renewal power, immortality, before he felt a sharp cold followed by warm darkness. Kite awoke to the sensation of burning. It was a special kind of sensation, as if small icy yet hot needles were pricked into his skin over half of his body. His vision was rather blurry and a bit off, as he realized that he couldn't open one of his eyes.

As his surroundings cleared, he saw the inside of the pavilion-like tent shared by the group. The heating lamp was out and gave off a radiance which was ever so pleasant to one part of his body while painful to the other. He groaned slightly and attempted to rise, but a firm hand kept him down as a concerned face surrounded by pink curls came into his field of view.

"Oh no, don't you think of getting up yet." Dragonfly said sternly, her enhanced strength easily pinning down the rather weak Kite. Not that he would have been able to best her even if he had his full strength. Relaxing back into the bedroll, he spoke softly as part of his mouth and throat didn't feel right.

"It seems like Fortune has shown me kindness yet again." he croaked, already looking forward to the increased resiliency of higher ranks.

"Are you injured? What about Serene?" The voice of the latter was the one that answered him like a low breeze barely heard.

"We are fine, Kite, thanks to your intervention. The gods did favor us here, both through your barriers and your own renewal power. I will sing songs of gratitude tonight." Serene said, tone lighter at the end.

"But you should rest. I have healed what I needed in the short term and now you will mostly need some more rest and energy as your body recovers. At the moment, it looks worse than it is."

"Was it bad?"

"Yes." Serene answered somberly.

"If we would all have been in your condition, even partially hit as you were, I am not sure any of us would have survived. Fortunately for us, the elementals did not seem interested in pursuit but Dragonfly carried you a good distance just to be safe."

"But you look like a half-frozen corpse." Dragonfly said, still concerned.

"Can I see?" Kite asked. While part of the thought filled him with dread, another needed the closure of knowing. Dragonfly produced a small mirror, holding it up to him. Kite could see his mostly undressed body with only his underwear remaining for a bit of modesty. He could see clearly where he had been partially hit by the blast, as that side of his body was a mix of mottled black and gray with other odd colors thrown into the mix where healthy skin met frostbitten.

It was odd, as if looking back against a body partially not his own. I could only imagine suffering such a wound without the luxury of his iron rank, as he would heal and be restored to full functionality from most injuries while a normal-ranker would be crippled for life. Kite nodded thanks to Dragonfly, who stowed the mirror.

"When I'm well enough to move, we need to get back to the village and send word to the society. This is way beyond our ability as we are today." His companions nodded and Serene spoke again.

"If things progress as they are now, you should be ready for careful travel tomorrow. We should take at least two more days back in the village, which should give us time to arrange for word to be sent." There was silence for a while before Serene spoke again.

"Yes, Dragonfly, you may hug him. But be careful to not touch the frostbitten parts." she said, some amusement in her voice as she had apparently been able to glimpse the wish from the other woman's aura. Dragonfly, ever fond of hugs, snuggled up close to Kite's healthy side, who in turn enjoyed the warmth. He fell back to sleep, thankful that not all paths needed to be walked alone.