Though the wolves were approag from all dires, it was difficult to pay attention to them as the bear sped up while on a collision course with Dawn’s group. While the others began to paniiphru sent two of his foxfires to attempt to burn the hindquarters of the bear, while utilizing the third to proje illusionary spike of rock emergiween the beast and its target. He also began to form the stro force struct he could manage, in the shape of a spear.

  At the same time, Lisry a gust of wind to amplify Niphru’s fmes, as well as a fying bst of air and debris from the forest floor toward one of its sides. Viera cast a rge sphere of light over the bear’s head, and Miana rapidly hurled darts of fire at its rear.

  Meanwhile, the roup was not idle, either, with Dawn quickly summoning up a rge steltion of bzing orbs aing them to orbit her. Thomas sent a ripple of dirt towards the left legs of the bear, and Richard prepared arong vortex of air beside the group, allowing it to pick up debris, much as Lisryn had done.

  Enraged by the barrage of attacks, the bear went into a frenzy, swiping wildly in all dires. Fortunately, it had been thhly blinded, and its sense of smell was also hampered siderably. As the beast threw brutal blow after blow into the air, it was easy enough for everyoo remain beside or behind it. Unfortunately, haunting howls rang out all around them, driving the bear into eveer desperation.

  Wheeling about suddenly and lunging, it collided with Thomas, hurling him backward. Luckily, he had mao throw up a wall of dirt before impact, stopping the cws ah, as well as blunting the strike.

  The opening it produced with the violent a allowed the others free reign for their attacks. Bdes of wind sliced into its neck as fire roiled across the creature’s skin. A moment ter, a bolt of force smmed into the other side of its throat, f the bear to turn with the strike.

  Niphru heard Morris speaking in the distance, calmly remarking, “Well, this is worse than expected. It should be fihough. Please stay baless it looks like someone might die, ahem away with as little harm as possible; we should see how well they hahemselves, not make it easier.”

  Clearly, this wasn’t something he was inteo hear, but having such sensitive hearing pared to the huma he could catch things much further away. Keeping the words in mind, he swiftly looked around the battle, spotting fshes of the practically skeletal wolves darting closer and closer to their flict.

  Shouting out to his group, he warhem, “The wolves look like they are going to attack us; we should take out the bear as fast as possible a up a defense!”

  Thomas, being separated from the group, was singled out by the wolves even though they were rgely holding babsp; The first one nearly struck him, but hearing Niphru’s warning, he was already scurrying back toward the group, and mao throw up even more dirt ih of the wolf.

  Quickly thinking ba his previous hunts at the vilge, Niphru made a qui and shouted over the roars of the bear, “Miana, Dawn, focus oing as much fire as possible in one dire; I’m going to try to force its mouth open, then we toss fire i instead of outside!”

  Trusting that at least Dawn would back him up, he began f two extra-tough pnes of force magic just a bit wider than the bear’s head. More attacks pelted the sides and back of the beast, keeping it occupied, though it seemed to be able to smell them better now that less fire was around its head. Each attack grew ever closer to striking one group or the other.

  Thomas rejoined his group, ung a wave of dirt backward at the encroag wolves before frantically spinning around and rag towards a nearby group of trees. Niphru was uo pay much attention, but did hear him shout, “I found a good spot; I’ll reinforce it; keep the wolves off me!”

  Immediately afterward, Dawn shouted out a response, “Miana, with Niphru and I, everyone else, help Thomas! Keep the light on the bear, though!”

  The barrage of attacks quickly diminished until nothing struck the bear for a full two seds as Niphru prepared his strike from the side. Seeing both of his panions beside each other and maintaining bzing fmes beside them, he caused an illusion of a loud ween them and the beast, causing it to turn toward them. Positioning his force magic just ahead of it, he winced as he shoved a bst of fire up its butt, causing it to roar in pain.

  As soon as it opes mouth, he shoved the pnes of force between the bear’s teeth, wedging them in pbsp; With a quick shout, Dawn and Miana both sent their white-hot fmes hurtling toward the bear’s mouth. The force magic shattered with an audible ch, but not before over half of the fire had bsted down the creature’s throat, causing incredible damage as it threw itself to the side with a sputtering cough.

  As the ground shook from the beast’s violent impaiphru turned back, spotting everyone else besides Dawn and Miana in an alcove between four trees, which had been ected together with earthen barriers. Seeing the two running toward it, he joihem, looking over his shoulder just in time to see a sed wolf sm into the side of the bear, oversized fangs crag against the skin. The first wolf jumped off the back of the bear, even as a third lu it.

  Turning back to where he was running, he spotted a wolf about to pouniana and hurled two of his fmes toward it, causing it to flinch backward from the intense light. However, yet another approag wolf forced him to swing the bzing orbs toward it rather thahe attack.

  A sed ter, he raced beyond the two of them, moving far faster than a human could. As he rapidly approached the prepared defense, he leapt into the air and spun, utilizing his air magi into the barrier legs-first to help cushion the impact as he simultaneously unched bolts of fme from all of his foxfires to cover Dawn and Miana in their retreat.

  Having prevehe wolves from reag their goal, Niphru g the bear again as his panions all reunited. An immense r out from the beast as one of the wolves mao bite deep into its nose, holding on for just a moment before leaping back just in time to avoid a swipe of its cws. Where it had bitten, however, clearly visible streaks of yellow ran down its skin.

  Spotting this, Niphru told his allies, “Careful, I think they have poison; I see something that doesn’t look like blood ing from the spot it got bitten.”

  Looking back, he saw the others nod, though several were distracted; Thomas ulling even more dirt up and over the top of them as Dawn and Miana bur to help solidify it in pbsp; Fortunately, it didn’t appear they were going for a full roof, which might colpse, but just enough to make it too difficult for anything to jump down into the group from above.

  After deg the wolves were mostly busy with the bear for the moment, Niphru joined in, using both his foxfire and his fire magic at the same time. A very short while ter, growls pulled his attention from the baked earth, turning to spot half a dozen wolves approag as over a dozen remained he bear, wearing it down as it became more and more sluggish.

  By this point, Thomas was exhausted and sitting on the ground, the others keeping him behind them as they began to prepare further attacks. The first wolf to leap entered two bsts of air, one smming into the side of its head, and a sed hitting the rear of its body, spinning it and tossing it babsp; The sed one ran into a very rge faceful of fire and smmed into the ground, trying to put itself out as it whined and yelped in pain.

  The others were siderably more careful after seeing what happeo the first two, and they began to spread out, quickly leaping apart as several balls of fire nearly hit them. Winds swirled toward the wolf furthest to the left, stirring up the debris on the ground into a fying bst that left that wolf yelping and dang to the side.

  The one on the right was struck with a bolt of fire that followed its attempt to dodge, smming into its snout and leaving it scurrying away as well. The middle two, however, mao dodge the spells headed toward them and advanced, seemingly ign their fellows.

  As o at Richard, the bear in the distaopped moving, wolves hanging back for a moment before beginning to tear it apart. Unfortunately for his attacker, Richard swung his staff with signifit force, smming it into the side of the beast with enough force to audibly crack ribs while throwing its leap off target. As it nded behind him, Thomas flipped the dirt it had colpsed o, quickly burying it beh the soil, which heaved as the creature struggled. After a moment of thought, he simply scooted over and sat on top of it, addi to the makeshift trap.

  The ohat tried to go after Viera did not have a pleasant time either, suddenly being blinded by intense light surrounding its head. As if that wasn’t enough, a bolt of force magic smmed into its h enough power to break it, followed by a wide spray of fire igniting nearly half of its fur.

  As the poor creature yelped and threw itself at the ground, a barrage of small bolts of white-hot fme smmed into its other side, diggih the skin before expanding with small popping noises.

  While everyone was distracted by those events, however, Niphru caught the sound of digging and scraping ing from behind them where the earthen wall stood. As he turned around, part of the wall burst inward, the front of a wolf pierg through where Thomas had been sitting earlier. Without wasting any time, Niphru pletely covered its head in fmes and smmed downward with air magitensifying the fire immensely.

  As the wolf struggled and died, another wolf threw itself down from the top of their barrier, barely managing to hit Richard as it fell, knog him to the ground. Before anyone could react, teeth fshed and dug deep into his shoulder, bones shattering and venom pumping into the wound. Even as his screams intensified and fluid flowed from the beast’s mouth, there ping noise, and for ck of a better term, the wolf simply exploded into gore.

  Where the wolf had previously stood, Lisryn’s guardian appeared, armored fist dripping flesh and blood as she shook it. She quickly k and pced her other hand on Richard’s wound. A moment ter, she frowned and shook her head before calmly walking away, to the fusion of the entire group. As the remaining wolves fled back to the group around the bear’s carcass, she simply stated, “It just makes moving harder, nothing deadly. You ha easily.”

  While it was shog to have such a thing happen, they tried not to let it stop them, Dawn and Niphru both turning to heal the man as the remainder kept alert for any other potential attacks. Meanwhile, it appeared the wolves had made the same decision, several of them standing around the age, staring and growling at them. This did not stop Miana from throwing several small balls of fire toward them, though she purposefully made them fall short, providing additional iive for the beasts to leave them alone.

  Ohe shredded flesh from the bite wound was ed and sealed, a quick discussion took pbsp; Sihe wolves were clearly twisted creatures rather than natural ones, most of them agreed they should be killed if possible. This led to the three fire mages w together to repeatedly unch fire into the gathering, provoking several smaller attacks as the group scattered. Each of these attacks was easily dealt with, only one or two attag at a time and easily being torn apart by the mixture of fire, force, air, ah magic still avaible to the mages.

  Niphru would have preferred using fire more, but air magic amplified the power of his allies’ attacks, so he used it quite a bit over the half hour as they tormehe wolves. Eventually, they mao kill over three-fourths of the pack before the rest fled, leaving their kill behind. After some cautious examination of the area to verify they were truly gone, everyone piled the corpses together around the bear ahem alight.

  Ohey finished auro treating Richard’s shattered bones, Morris emerged from the trees, g. As they looked up, he announced, “You did much better than expected. At most, we were expeg two or three things to attaot aire pack of wolves, especially not ones with poison. While Yurania did step in, I think you would have been able to deal with the threat yourselves, and it was better to be safe than sorry. I don’t think I would have attacked the pack, in your position, however.”

  As the others murmured among themselves, Niphru spoke up, “They seemed too focused to eat to all focus on us at onbsp; Otherwise, I think they would have had the whole pack after us rather than so many of them fog oing the bear when it went down.”

  Hearing this, Morris nodded before replying, “It was still fairly dangerous, and I was expeg I would have to step in. But it did turn out well, in the end.”He then turo focus on the rest of the group again before asking, “Do the rest of you want to stop for now, or start heading back?”

  Without even stopping to look at each other, the entire group spoke at once, “Stop!”

  With the unanimous answer, everyone chuckled. After a short discussion, they decided to camp right where they were in the hopes that the rge fire would keep anything from approag. While they waited for the adrenalio wear off, the healers went back to fog on Richard, helpihe bones into pd enhang their regeion as much as they could.