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This, Clive thought, is an incredibly stupid way to die.
It was a bloody pack of worgens. Worgens! They were a nuisance at best to him, something that he swept away with the Blessing of the Phoenix and a couple swift strokes from his sword in the past. But he was a fool, too overconfident with this half-starved pack that was pushed out of the blighted areas of the Greatwood and desperate for food.
The fight started with him sweeping upon them a rain of fire to both clear the road of their danger and to put them out of their misery, as he had done dozens of times in his life. That killed all but two of them, and the last of the two should have fled back into the woods normally.
But desperation made animals act differently, which he knew but hadn't taken into account this time. And one of the wolf-like creatures was especially desperate. Instead of fleeing, the second worgen swept in from Clive's right side as he cleaved through the first beast and leapt at his arm. The worgen's maw only bit his metal shoulder guard, but its right paw caught the cloth underside of his arm just below his chain mail and ripped.
Clive shouted in anger and pain and blasted the worgen away with fire from his left hand. As Torgal bit into its neck to end its miserable life, he felt wetness pouring over his arm.
It was bleeding. Bleeding badly. He dropped to one knee as he suddenly felt lightheaded.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Clive dropped his sword and clapped his left hand across his right arm. He didn't have any potions on him, having used his last one days ago. He should have fully restocked at Martha's Rest rather than waiting until he made it to Lostwing.
He fell to both knees. He needed to stop the bleeding. But he couldn't move his hand and his pack was still on his back and he was getting dizzier—
This was such a stupid way to die. Cid would be so disappointed.
Torgal suddenly moved behind him and started growling. Oh, wonderful. More worgens? Maybe he'd die to them first.
"Whoa there—hey!"
Clive blinked and managed to turn himself to the sound of the unexpected voice. What greeted him was a tall, dark-haired man who looked the part of a nobleman in those clothes. But he was clearly alone, and no nobility traveled alone, not in these times. And was he unarmed?
The man took a step forward, but as Torgal growled again, he paused. "Call off your dog. I can help you."
Clive was suspicious, of course, but it was getting harder to stay conscious and, well, he'd be dead if he said no anyway. If the man did anything, at least Torgal would make sure he got what was coming to him. "Down, Torgal," he rasped.
Torgal obeyed, moving from a defensive position to lay on the ground. The stranger then did something odd with his hands as he rubbed one over the other. Before Clive could even begin to wonder what that was, he crossed the distance between them, pulling off one of his belts as he did.
"Keep pressing down. Don't let go," he said. He unbuckled Clive's shoulder guard, then started to wind the belt on his upper arm uncomfortably tight.
"What—what are you doing?" he asked. He thought the stranger would maybe offer a potion to help stop the bleeding. Those were certainly less expensive and more common than the crystals used for such purposes.
"Tourniquet. It'll slow down the bleeding long enough to get a bandage." Clive had never heard of such a thing before. "Do you have bandages or some sort of cloth?" the stranger asked.
"Pack," he managed. The dizziness was still not abating and it was getting difficult to keep his eyes open.
He heard more than saw the stranger move behind him, and it really spoke to his current state that he didn't even flinch as he felt his pack being rummaged through. Clive did have bandages—always useful to have when a potion didn't stem all the bleeding, just the worst of it—but he wasn't sure how useful they'd be here without a potion.
The stranger was back in front of him. "Lift your arm, then remove your hand."
Clive did, and the stranger was quick in wrapping the bandage around his arm, again uncomfortably tight—but that would help the bleeding, he presumed. The flow seemed to have slowed down with the application of the belt. What had he called it, again?
"Are you… a physicker?" he asked as the man tied off the bandage.
The man's brow furrowed. "Yes, I suppose that's one word for it," he said. "Do you have water? You need to replace fluids."
Did he? Well, water wouldn't hurt, at least. Clive fumbled for his water bladder on his belt with his left hand, managing it after a couple missteps. The stranger frowned but said nothing.
After he drank his fill, the stranger asked, "Are you right-handed?"
What an odd question. "Yes. Why?"
"Because the bleeding hasn't fully stopped yet, and I can't keep the tourniquet on forever without risking your arm."
That was alarming. "How long can it stay?"
"No more than two hours. But with how much blood you've already lost, I don't know if I want to wait that long. Doubt there's a medical facility nearby."
What an odd thing to say. He'd ponder that further when he wasn't having such a hard time staying awake. "Lostwing's two days away."
The stranger pursed his lips. "Right." He sighed. "Well, my own business will need to wait. I can't leave you alone in good conscience. Is this road a safe place to wait?"
With the possibility of hostile Imperial patrols or bandits? Certainly not. "No."
"Right. We'll go to where I came—uh, was earlier. Seemed quiet there."
He didn't like how cryptic that was, but he was rather certain that if the man wanted to kill him, he most surely would have by now without going through all this trouble of doing—whatever he was doing with his arm. Treating it in some manner. "Fine."
The stranger looked at his sword. "Can you get that on your back without moving your right arm?"
It'd be awkward. Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure. Actually— "Torgal can carry it."
The man shot him a dubious look. "Your dog, I presume," he said flatly.
This wouldn't be the first time a stranger had underestimated Torgal. "Torgal, sword," he called.
The man watched as Torgal obeyed, his eyes narrowing in some sort of thought that Clive couldn't discern. "Smart dog," he eventually said. "Okay, I'm going to help you up now. Keep your right arm as still as possible."
Clive wasn't thrilled to be accepting such bodily help from the stranger, but even as he managed to get on one knee he realized it was needed; the dizziness was making it incredibly difficult to stand. The man wrapped his arm around Clive's back until it rested on his right side, careful to avoid the arm itself, and slung Clive's left arm over his shoulders. With his help, Clive was able to make it back up to his feet, though he had to close his eyes immediately against the wave of nausea.
"Don't throw up on me. You need those fluids," the stranger said. "One foot in front of the other, now."
"Who are you?" Clive muttered when he was able to manage speech again.
"Camp first, questions later. Save your breath."
The man led him a few yards down the road before breaking into the undergrowth, obviously following his own path back into it from the crushed plants ahead of them. Behind them Clive could hear Torgal who was, somehow, getting through the trees with his sword still in his mouth. Not an easy feat.
He didn't know how long they walked, too busy concentrating on his feet so he didn't stumble and fall, but they eventually came to a clearing. While it had a clear spot of dirt for a fire, It didn't look like it had been camped in at all previously, no matter that the stranger had called it a camp.
"This tree here works," the man said. "Careful, gonna lower you." With his help, Clive soon found himself relieved of his pack and resting against a mighty elm tree not yet touched by the Blight like so many of its relatives further south. Torgal came up to him and dropped the hilt near Clive's hand, well within reach, then settled on his other side. His eyes were still on the stranger's movements, not as guarded but everwatching.
The stranger, in the meanwhile, set Clive's pack down beside him and was now frowning down at him. Or rather, at his arm. "Might need a fire—I suppose I could…" He reached his hand out towards the surrounding woods, but paused, then sighed. "Yeah, best not," he muttered to himself. Clive wasn't sure if the man realized he could hear every word, because he then said more loudly, "I'm going to make a fire. I have, uh, flint. Just need wood. Drink more water. I can ah, collect more if you run out."
Clint narrowed his eyes as the man turned his back on him. A man dressed as finely as him shouldn't even be aware of flint's use; if he could afford that masterfully embroidered red cloak and richly dyed, untorn blue tunic, he could certainly afford crystals or Bearers. It was only the poorest of families that used flint—or his people at the Hideaway, cut off from aether as they were.
He kept silent, drinking more water as he watched the man gather a bundle of sticks, brush, and rotted branches for the fire. He placed them down within the center of the dirt, then seemed to purposefully move to block Clive's view of the wood pile. He knelt at it for a while—but not nearly long enough to explain the healthy flame the man already had when he moved away.
Flint took much longer to catch with even the most experienced hands, and there was no crystal in sight. More importantly, Clive wanted to know what he was dealing with.
"You're a Bearer, aren't you?"
Rather than alarm, the man looked at him with a puzzled frown. "Not sure what that means."
Who was this man? "How could you possibly not know?"
The man pursed his lips. "I'm not… from these parts. Anywhere near them."
Surely he wasn't from the Continent. He understood, largely from Lady Charon, that the larger merchant houses traded with the Continent, but anything beyond trade was outright unheard of. Weeks upon weeks of choppy seas, the wars that plagued Valisthea, and the spreading Blight made it an inhospitable place to visit. If this man was within one of the coastal towns or even the Empire's capital, he might believe it, but all the way out here?
Still, it wouldn't hurt to pretend he fully believed him and answered his question. "You can use magic without crystals. That makes you a Bearer."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Clive huffed at the question; it really did sound genuine. "You wouldn't want to be showing it off to people unless you want the Imperial Guard called on you." As the man frowned, he added, "But I'm not most people."
The man crossed his arms. "So you're not going to suddenly try and stab me if I use a bit of magic, is what you're saying."
"So long as it's not against me."
He frowned again. "I'm trying to save your life, thank you very much. And I'm not sure if I've done it. The real test will come once I remove that tourniquet. But we can wait a little longer to see if clotting's started properly or not. In the meantime, since you don't mind magic…"
Clive stared as the man lifted himself upward and then sat cross-legged in the air. And what was more fascinating was that there was no physical manifestation of the aether's usage—which happened with all magic, at least that Clive knew of. His cloak waved in a wind that wasn't present, only adding to the unusual picture.
"I've never seen a Bearer do that," he said, keeping the surprise out of his voice.
"Well, I'm probably not a Bearer, then, not if there's a specific type of magic tied to the definition," he said. "And the magic around here feels very unlike what I'm used to, so I imagine we use entirely different sorts."
Clive frowned at him. Again he alluded to being from elsewhere, but this display proved it more than even his clothing and confusion. "Where, exactly, are you from?"
The man pursed his lips. "I'm sorry, but I really can't get into it. It's a bit complicated. I don't plan to be here long, though; I'm just here to collect something that shouldn't be here in the first place, then I'm back to where I came from. I would already be done if I hadn't found you bleeding out."
More evasive answers that answered none of his questions. Clive grimaced. "Can I at least get a name?" Surely that was something he could answer.
The man's lips quirked. "Stephen. And you?"
"Clive."
The man—Stephen—hummed. "I'd ask what happened, but I saw all those dead wolves. I didn't realize wolf claws could go so deep."
"They were worgens." Similar, but much nastier—especially their claws.
"Right," Stephen said. "Well, whatever you call them, it nicked your brachial artery. You're lucky I came upon you when I did."
Clive was very well aware of that. He inclined his head. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," he said. He nodded his chin towards the injury. "If you're still bleeding when we remove the tourniquet, I'm afraid cauterization may be your best bet—I'm not happy about it, especially in a forest of all places, but our options are limited."
He had no idea what a cauterization was, but he wasn't about to admit that at the moment. "Why not use healing magic?" Using magic in front of him didn't seem to bother Stephen.
Stephen shook his head. "I don't know what type of healing magic you're used to, but I can't just wave my hands and fix a nicked artery, and by the time I came upon you, you had lost too much blood for me to try slowing your body's blood flow. Your blood pressure's more than likely shot and slowing it down further could easily kill you. Honestly, I'm surprised you're as coherent as you are right now."
Clive's lips twitched. "I've survived worse."
"I'm sure," he said. "Point is, I can't repair broken arteries by waving my hands at them. Though…" He frowned and looked down at the ground. "The magic here is present… it's very present, and thick. I can try and conjure an electrocautery pen rather than using a knife and it should remain present long enough for me to keep my hands—" He cut himself off.
A couple of those words Clive didn't know—maybe Tarja would, but he was no physicker—but how a knife of all things could be used in healing was beyond him. When he cut himself off, though, Clive's eyes immediately went to Stephen's hands. Now that he wasn't just focusing on not passing out, he noticed that both of his hands were badly scarred. Rather strange scars, too.
"Never mind that," Stephen said. "I have an idea. Let's test it before putting it into motion."
He settled himself on his feet again and made a complex motion with his hands that Clive had never seen used before. This time the magic had a physical presence, appearing as bright orange shapes and runes within a circle. Stephen aimed it towards the ground and lifted his arm upward.
To Clive's amazement, aether started flowing from the ground in a small stream—nothing so much as a flood to be worried about, but a small steady trickle that fell up into the circle. Bearers certainly had no command of raw aether, and Dominants—well, he didn't take the aether from around him. Otherwise he would have certainly been more powerful in that aether flood within the mine. All of them would have if they had that sort of mastery, and Cid—
Clive cut that thought off sharply before it could go anywhere else. He couldn't change the past. There was no use thinking of such what-ifs.
Stephen cut off the trickle of aether and it actually stopped. Then with the aether gathered, he—crafted something, something made of raw aether itself. It was very thin and resembled a crochet needle more than anything. "Now let's see if this object sticks around even when I'm not channeling magic outward."
"Wait," Clive said. "You should know—raw aether such as that can prove to be very harmful to most people."
"This will hurt you?"
"Not me, personally, but you may harm yourself."
Stephen frowned at the object as it floated in the air. "Hmm." He closed his eyes and put both hands around it without touching it, and again the orange lines of magic appeared, this time around the object. "Yes. I see what you mean."
What on earth did he mean? "Do you?"
Stephen nodded. He continued to study it as he said, "I'm used to many different types of magic. Channeling magic comes with limitations and costs, depending on the source. But this one… the magic of this land's rather unusual."
Clive hadn't ever imagined there were different types of magic before today beyond what the people of Valisthea drew from the crystals, but the idea was fascinating. "How is it unusual?"
He narrowed his eyes. "This magic is, for lack of a better term, hungry. It consumes—perhaps even consumes more than it gives, depending on the wielder. Or bearer." He looked back down at him. "I'm surprised none of these Bearers, if you're friendly with them, have ever told you. Perhaps they feel it differently." His hands began to make more complicated gestures that meant nothing to Clive, but they caused more symbols of orange light to spring up in the air around the aether contraption he made, and he wasn't stopping.
Clive kept his eyes on the unusual magic as he answered, "Consume is a fitting word. Bearers can only use so much magic before they start becoming petrified. And as they continue to use it, eventually their whole body turns to stone."
Stephen grimaced. "Sounds terrible. No wonder your country forbids magic."
If only that were the case. "You misunderstood me." Stephen paused his movement and raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction. "You wouldn't be locked up by the Imperial Guard for using magic—you'd be locked up for being thought an unbranded Bearer."
He narrowed his eyes. "Unbranded?"
"When identified—usually at birth, but there are cases of older children—Bearers are given up to the state to be placed as they see fit for the duration of their lives, whether it's in the service of the Empire or its citizens. A brand on their face identifies them."
Stephen pressed his lips into a tight line, then began his magic anew. "State-sanctioned sorcerer slavery. Goes into the rankings of worst alliterations ever, right alongside the KKK." He let out a sharp exhale, then glanced down at Clive. "The brand wouldn't happen to be on the lower left cheek, would it?"
Clive stared evenly at him at the question, lips pursed. His scar wasn't thought of as a brand removal simply due to the fact that almost no one realized it was possible to live through such a procedure. That ignorance aided him in his journeys, but Stephen was definitely a more observant physicker.
At Clive's silence, Stephen simply said, "Well, I appreciate the warning. I'll be out of here as soon as my business is finished—and once I make sure you're not dying, of course."
Clive wasn't quite sure he liked that, either. "But you're not armed."
"Don't need to be. I can defend myself in other ways. And I'll avoid other people in the meantime."
He certainly sounded confident, though Clive wasn't quite sure. Still, he wasn't one to tell a man what he could and could not do. "If you say so."
"Trust me, with all this magic just sitting here, I am all set." Stephen put his hands down and his golden shapes disappeared around the aether instrument. "And I'm all set against this—raw aether, as you called it. At least for as long as I need to use it."
"What did you do?"
"Warded it. The wards will stay up even when I change my channeling to strictly interior use."
Clive frowned. None of this was how the magic he used worked, so he asked, "And what does that accomplish?"
Stephen pressed his lips together and looked to the side. "It's irrelevant. I—"
"No," Clive interrupted. At the change of tone, Torgal lifted his head. "If it has to do with how you're treating my arm, it's fully relevant." He already had too little information about his methods.
They stared at each other for a moment, then Stephen exhaled. "I suppose it doesn't matter," he said. He lifted up one of his scarred hands and then made a fist. As he did so, Clive saw minute shaking. "If I need to cauterize this wound—and with how bad it looked, I'm thinking it's likely—it requires precision that these hands can't do anymore. Only way to still them is to channel magic into them—but then I can't do any other magic. I can stop the shaking during emergencies like this—like when I was making that tourniquet back on the road—but it's a tradeoff I otherwise can't accept." He huffed. "That enough information for you?"
That was very interesting. He didn't think aether was capable of such a feat. "Yes," he said.
"Good." Stephen exhaled again. "Right. Finish your water—I'll refill your containers before you leave. Want you to be as hydrated as possible." He then muttered, "Though what I wouldn't give for saline. Or gloves. Or a sterile room. Though none of those likely exist here."
Did the man not notice Clive's own gloves? Strange fellow. Still, his advice on the water was sound; it seemed to have helped his dizziness abate, so he did as instructed, finishing off both of his water bladders within the next few minutes.
"Do you have any magic that can make a bright light?" Stephen asked. "If not, I'm going to need to move you by the fire to better see the area. Too shady here."
Well, it certainly wasn't worth hiding it at this point since he had guessed he was once branded. Clive conjured up a fireball and let it hover over him.
Stephen nodded. "Yeah, okay, it's no LED but I can work with it. Also, I'm going to borrow one of these." He took one of the empty bladders and ran a hand over it, and Clive could see it now physically looked full. "This is as pure water as I can get, despite whatever lines the interior. Anyway, don't suppose you happen to have soap on you?"
Clive's brow furrowed. "Soap is a commodity that I don't tend to carry while traveling."
"Yeah, thought that'd be too much to ask," Stephen grumbled. He splashed his hands with water, then ran his hands over each other, just as he did when they met on the road. "I'm going to remove the tourniquet and we'll see how that wound's doing."
It turned out that Stephen's worries were well-founded. Once he removed his belt and the bandaging, Clive could see that blood was still pouring from the wound. It wasn't as much as it was at the start, but more than enough time had passed to stop bleeding if it would on its own.
"Right," Stephen said. He splashed some water on the wound to better reveal the cut. "Let's get started. You may want to bite down on something; unfortunately, this is going to hurt."
Nothing would ever be as bad as the branding he endured over fifteen years ago. "I can handle it."
"In your case, I think I believe you. Still, inflicting hurt is not something I particularly enjoy and I thought I'd give you a warning. Can you keep your arm still?"
Clive grabbed at the root at the base of the tree to hold onto and positioned his body so that Stephen could see the cut better. It started bleeding a little faster. "Let's get this over with."
Stephen grabbed his tool made of aether from the air and nodded. With one hand he grabbed Clive's arm just below the cut, but before he started, he looked over at Torgal, who was watching him closely. "Your dog isn't going to attack me if you start showing you're in pain, is he?"
Clive placed his left hand on Torgal's head. "It's all right, boy. Stay down. This is necessary." Torgal whined, but he lowered his head. Clive moved his hand down in the thickest part of Torgal's hair, a place he knew wouldn't hurt him if he ended up grabbing him. "Ready." Another nod, then Stephen brought the aether to the cut.
It burned like fire. All ideas of watching disappeared as Clive shut his eyes, clenching his teeth and using all his willpower to keep still. He had little idea how this worked, but he imagined it was something similar to Tarja's brand removal surgery—though at the Hideaway they had some tonics to help take the edge off the pain. This was worse than that because they had nothing, but it definitely was not as bad as branding. Nowhere near.
Stephen's tool made little noise, but it sparked hot fire, loud enough for Clive to hear over his sharp breaths through his nose. He could also smell burning—was that his own flesh, then? He would need to ask Tarja if she recognized any of this once he was back home.
The passing minutes were agonizingly long, slow seconds of burning that brought painful memories to the surface: of Phoenix Gate, of branding, of bearing fire through battle after battle whether he wished to or not, and more recently of Ifrit and that painful realization.
These were not memories he wished to dwell on.
A voice broke through the tempest of his thoughts. "Done." Clive pried open his eyes as the burning, while still present, lessened in intensity. The aether tool hung in the air between them, and Stephen was now wiping away the excess blood on his arm. As for the cut itself, the skin was now blackened and burned shut, bleeding no more.
"I doubt these are non-stick dressings, so you'll need to be careful when changing them not to pull at the skin; it can stick sometimes," Stephen said. He got a new length of bandages and started wrapping his arm. "I'd say change the bandages two to three times a day, but I'm afraid of the skin tearing if you do that too soon. Wait a day in this case. More important to note is that this is stupidly prone to infection because you can't even be bothered to carry proper soap, so the minute you get to the nearest town that has any type of healing you're used to, you get it treated. Watch for spreading redness and pus in particular and find a doc—physicker if that happens. If your magic here can treat this, do as much of that treatment as you can. And start carrying soap with you."
Clive looked at him with bemusement. "Why soap?"
Stephen grimaced at him. "It's good hygiene. I mean—assuming germs are in this place. I don't see why they wouldn't be. Do people ever get sick with anything beyond petrification?"
"Certainly." And it was one thing that plants could cure better than crystals, at least from what he understood.
"Then use soap and use it often—especially before handling food or wounds. You'll thank me."
Clive's bemusement wasn't quenched, but he decided to humor the man. "Sure."
Stephen finished off the bandage, then kneeled back. He ran his hands—partially stained with blood now—over each other, and Clive saw that they were shaking again, this time a bit more than before. Stephen grimaced to himself, but said nothing. Instead he made a few hand gestures and the blood on his hands disappeared.
"Your magic seems very versatile," said Clive.
"It is," he replied. "Though not a tool that can solve all problems."
Clive couldn't help but smile wryly. "Were it that more people thought like that."
"Yeah. No offense, but I can't say I'm really fond of a land that makes its magic users tools. I'm quite against slavery regardless, but using magic in such a way is just… wrong. Especially the magic present here."
"We are in agreement there."
Stephen refilled the water bladder he had used during his administrations. Clive watched it expand. "And what does the rest of your world think about that? Are most content with the status quo or is it causing a lot of strife and debate?"
While Stephen held similar views to him, it was not his business to know of his allies and their work. Still, he could say, "Not everyone agrees with how Bearers are treated."
"That's good," he murmured. He waved the aether tool closer to him and stared at it. "It still amazes me how readily available your magic is—and how permanent it is. It still shows no sign of wavering in its current form."
Clive considered the man before him. His expertise of magic was undeniable, for he was able to guess how the aether would take from its wielders, supposedly without being familiar with it. And at some point in their conversation, Clive's doubt regarding his story and experience had disappeared. Now, he wondered… "You said before that the aether consumes and that it possibly takes more than it gives."
"I did."
Clive thought of Cid and his theories: about the enormity of the Mothercrystals and how, despite mining them for hundreds of years, they never actually ran out of crystals; of how the shortage only began after Oriflamme's Mothercrystal fell into an aetherflood; and of course, the ever growing Blight even as the other four are continuously mined. It was a theory that he had grown to believe and, despite what Stephen answered, would still see it through—but it would be interesting to hear an outside perspective. "If it's all around us within the land, what do you think would happen if there was a place that required a significant amount of aether to exist and function?"
Stephen's brow furrowed. His eyes went back to the aether form. "It's difficult to say. Take this pen; I'm going to release it back to the earth in a moment. But were I to install it here instead and instruct it to grow, it can only take from the surrounding resources. Unless this type of magic regenerates over time within the ground itself, I presume the earth would eventually grow barren."
"I don't think it regenerates," he said. "Not quickly, at least." Not quickly enough for how much they used.
Stephen deconstructed his aether tool and let the magical particles fall back into the earth. "You said your sorcerers—your Bearers—that they're born with the ability to use this aether without crystals, yes?"
"In some capacity. Sometimes the abilities show at birth, while others it may take years to manifest."
"Interesting. Does your society have any idea why that's the case? Why some are born with the ability and others aren't, and why there's a range in its manifestation?"
Clive shook his head. "I'm no loresman. I'm sure there's some sort of history and speculation, but I think much of it has been lost to time." And Cid's speculation that there would be no more magic within anyone born after the crystals fell was something they were banking on. "In any case, for those who can wield magic without crystals, the power is more of a curse than blessing." Certainly for Bearers and, in some capacity, for Dominants as well. Cid had certainly thought so.
Stephen made a face. "Yes. If I was born in a land that enslaved me for my powers, I'd rather not have them at all."
Clive could not help my smile. "That is my thought, as well." And once they had an opening, he would go destroy the second Mothercrystal to see that freedom brought to all of mankind.
Stephen exhaled and stood, brushing the dirt off his trousers. "I should get going. Will you be alright from this point on?"
He inclined his head. "Yes. Thank you for your aid today, Stephen. I am in your debt."
"Don't mention it," he said, waving a hand. "And I doubt I'll be back in this, eh, area at any point again, so don't hold too hard onto that so-called debt. Just remember what I said about wound care. And soap."
His lips twitched. "Duly noted. Take care."
"You too." Stephen walked out of the clearing and soon was out of hearing range altogether.
Clive turned to Torgal. "Rather a strange one, him." Torgal whined. "It's a shame he wasn't here to stay for long; I believe he may have made a formidable ally." He certainly wouldn't have minded seeing how he defended himself without any weapon.
Still, it was good to know that there were others out there that thought similarly to him, especially as he got pushback from Bearers who wanted nothing to do with the growing legend of Cid the Outlaw. And there would be hardships with no crystals as humanity learned to live in another way, but it was the only way to truly free humanity.
And he would see that dream through.