Early the m, Niphru was lying on the bed watg Monti and Dawn work together to help one of the worse off vilgers heal enough to leave. While doing so, he heard the door open, and a moment ter one of the warriors of the Church of flict stopped beside his bed. Just before the man began speaking, he reized him as the one who had spoken out against him before the Bck Tide arrived.

  To his surprise, the man bowed to him before speaking, “I wish to apologize for my previous words and thoughts towards you, Niphru. You have proven yourself to be an honorable individual, as well as a very capable batant.” The man sighed and shook his head.

  Waving his hand towards where Da, the man tinued, “I heard you were crippled from your part in saving Dawn, but by doing so, you bought time for two of us to get to her. I am thankful that we were able to save her due to your as. Both of you saved us numerous times.”

  The man looked down, remaining silent for a few seds before speaking again, “Holy, I’m surprised you went out of your way to protect us, especially me after I called you a mere beast. It would have been easier for you to ignore me, and no one would bme you in battle. Despite not being human, you are a better man than I. I sincerely hope you recover from your injuries, Niphru, and I would be willing to aid you iure, should you have use of my talents. I am the only one named Gee ih band of the Church.”

  Unfortunately, Niphru was uo respond to Gee as he bowed again and the.

  After about another hour of watg Dawn helping with Monti’s work, Amilya walked in, announg that the warriors were about to leave. She then pulled Dawn aside, speaking to her for a moment before leaving. A few moments ter, one of the warriors came in to assist the st who had been injured – he had lost his vision after all, and needed someoo help him walk.

  As they got up, Dawn came over to piiphru up, carefully slipping his mana stoo a pouch around her waist as she did so. He saw her nod to Monti as she began walking to the door, heading towards the western gate along with a number of other vilgers.

  Upon arriving, they found the warriors standing beside the gate, waiting for the st two members. As they approached, Devon stepped forward before announg, “I am sorry for the difficulties our stay has caused you, and am thankful for the help we have received. Without the mage support, especially that of Dawn and Niphru, we would have been overwhelmed.”

  Following this, all the warriors bowed towards them before Devon tinued, “I know many of you are worried, as it is teically our duty to report Niphru to have him killed. However, we shall not be doing so, out of respect both for his astonishing work proteg you, as well as that he is—as you are aware—a good person, even if he happens to not be human. We do have to be ho when we report, but luckily events happened as they did, and we truthfully report we did not find a fox iown when we arrived, and we did kill one in the woods.”

  At this, the vilgers began speaking amongst themselves, temporarily drowning out any possible speech from Devon. After a moment, Amilya stepped forward, replying, “We thank you for your attempts to help, and more so for your willio overlook Niphru’s species. It would be incredibly unfortunate if one of our own was targeted further. May your journey back be one of peace.”

  Following this statement, all the warriors except for Devon turned and began leaving, as he finished, “I thank you once again, and I hope that everything goes well for your vilge once we are gone.”

  Dawn smiled as she watched them leaving, clearly relieved by what they had said, while Niphru felt somewhat flicted. While they had inally been his ehey had proven to be honorable, and done all they could to help. While he had been rec, he had heard of how two of them had raced into the inferno he had created and pulled Dawn free, despite the risk to themselves, and Devon had even raced to his own rescue.

  As he sidered things more, he decided it was wrong to treat people as either friends or enemies, as clearly they could shift over time. It was likely that if he insisted on defining people into a category, he might prevent them from ging, which could be quite bad, as this situation had proven.

  As he was thinking this through, Dawn took him baonti’s house, which had cleared out quite a bit over the past few days, with only three other patients left. After setting him back down on a bed, and pg his mana stone back beh his head, she headed baonti. A few moments ter, he headed back towards Niphru with a pot of water and some dirty bandages.

  As he rihe bandages, he expio both of them that one of the many things a healer o uand was that there were tiny things that could kill you even if you couldn’t see them, provided they got into wounds. tinuing, he brought up that one of the lesser knoects of healing was the ability to kill such tiny things. After apologizing that he couldn’t help Niphru practice, he handed a bao Dawn, and showed her how to sterilize it, slowly moving a glowing fog across it several times.

  Dawn caught on rapidly, only taking three attempts to figure out how to do so herself. While her first two bandages o be redohe third and fourth times she was good enough to catch what she hadn’t gotten on the first try herself. After the fourth, each bandage passed Monti’s iion, and he nodded in approval.

  After they finished ing and sterilizing all the bandages, Monti very directly stated, “You must never use a bandage on someohout beiain it is sterile first. Even if you have checked it before, they pick up dangerous things just bei out. Sometimes it works out fine, but other times, serious iions have occured, many times causih of the patient. If you are to be a good healer, always keep this in mind.”

  Dawn looked at him with wide eyes, surprised at how vehement he was about the subject, then nodded and replied, “If you are so certain, then I will be sure to follow your example.”

  Satisfied, Monti hen took the pot and bandages bato the kit before returning with a few of them and heading back to the other patients. Seeing this, Dawn stroked Niphru’s head and then headed over to assist with the work.

  Uo help or learn anything else for the moment, Niphru closed his eyes and attempted to sleep. While it took a while, it eaceful enough that there was no major difficulty, and he eventually slipped into a dreamless slumber.