"I finally caught that flying pig!" Krista shouted. "That was way more difficult than it should have been."
Currently, Krista was somewhere in the forest searching for their next meal, which happened to be this pig. Around last week the group started to run low on food, so they had to start hunting. Unfortunately, both Darius and Amelia didn't know the first thing about hunting.
Sure, Darius was good at erasing his presence and was a great shot, but he didn't know how to properly skin animals, the best places to shoot prey, or even how to track them… not that Krista was too much better.
Amelia, similarly, was a complete lost cause. She tried to tell the Darius and Krista, that as a healer it was her job to protect and heal, rather than bring harm to any living creatures. Even though she said this while skinning and washing a rabbit Krista had caught earlier. Rather than her reason, it was because she didn't know how to use any hunting weapons. Amelia immediately realized this but just didn't want to admit it.
The odd man out, Darius revealed himself to be a decent cook. Something about being the person who fed himself and his grandfather for some time.
After a bit of deliberation, the group came to a compromise. Every three days, when they stopped, Krista would go hunting, Amelia would continue giving lessons to Darius along with skinning the animals, and Darius would teach her how to use the bow along with being their resident cook.
Lately, Amelia started to say that there wasn't much more she could teach Darius. At least, any lesson pertaining the basics of wattiez. This resulted in her giving him more specialized lessons in Life Wattiez. Soon, Darius would need to find another specialist if he wanted to delve further into his teachings.
For Krista, she was just excited to finally catch the little bugger. Despite the flying pigs relatively small size, they had thick hide and could move fairly quickly. "It's about time I get back to the team."
With the javelin finally free from the pig's body, she placed the carcass within a small bag. "Ah! That hurts, that hurts," Krista cried as her whole body started to sting.
The hunt was going well at first, but when she accidently walked over some dry leaves, the flying pig booked it. That led to an hour-long trek through the woods that left Kristina's skin full of scratches, her clothes torn, and a bunch of other injuries that she didn't bother checking for.
"Darius had better make this pig taste delicious or else."
Once she finally got back to the camp, Amelia was practicing her shooting. Darius was adamant about teaching Amelia the bow and arrow, but she preferred using the crossbow, much to his annoyance.
"Breathe and fire!" Amelia was hyper focused on the tree; yelling out the words Darius drilled into to her. Much to Krista's surprise, she actually hit the tree.
"Good job Amelia!" Krista cried. "You'll be better than Darius in no time!" Krista set down the pig and ran up to her.
"Maybe next time, we can upgrade to the bow!" Darius yelled from behind a tree.
"Does he have a vendetta against the crossbow or something?" Krista pondered. "Leave the girl alone Darius! Amelia, I got the pig, but before that how about a little bit of healing?"
Amelia smiled and shook her head.
"What does that mean?" Krista asked.
While Krista understandably confused about this, but Amelia broke out into a song, "Here he is, here he is. A man who will, heal any ill. If you're in trouble, he'll be there on the double. Its Darius, the glorious."
Out popped a man, wearing extremely flamboyant clothes, a lot of feathers, make up, and he looked to be in his mid 30's. Near him was Fierce, equally as flamboyant, with jewels all around her body and a little crown on her head.
"Don't forget my beautiful assistant, Lady Fierce!"
Krista looked towards Amelia for answers, but she was already on the ground trying to cover her tomato-colored face, "He insisted I do this."
Fierce was running happily around Darius as he made various ridiculous poses. Krista wasn't sure she should place her wellbeing in his hands. "Seriously, you're going to have him heal me?"
Amelia turned towards Darius and shrugged, "He's been learning from me. This is as much a test for me as it is a test for him. Don't worry he should be more than capable to heal your aching body, and I'll be right here if anything happens."
"That's reassuring at least," Krista originally thought, then she took one more look at Darius, who was carrying Fierce on his shoulders. "I have a bad feeling about this."
Darius held onto Amelia's staff and looked at Krista perversely, "It seems, Ms. Kristina, that I'll be giving you a checkup today. If you'd just remove your-"
I tug on his check to get him to knock it off. "Alright fine. Listen, you have nothing to worry about. My teacher is one of the best, so you're in good hands."
"With somebody looking like how he does, I'm not sure how much I can trust those words," Krista concluded. "Fine. Lay it on me, oh magic healer man."
Darius took a stance and pretended to throw some daggers. Amelia, seeing the concern in Krista's face, tried to comfort her. "He'll learn to feel the flow of energy into his body without doing all that eventually, but until then," she shrugged.
She wasn't the best at it, but Krista did feel a little better. Darius wasn't letting up, Krista knew her words might mess up his focus, but she couldn't help but want to tease him. "Work it Darius, let me see you sweat!"
He paid her no mind and continued, while he's doing so his eyes change through all the different colors, until I could see it settle on a faint orange hue behind his eyes. "Alright Krista I'm all set, now why don't you tell me where it hurts?"
Krista didn't need to see herself in a mirror to know that she was a mess, "Everywhere… It hurts everywhere."
Darius was expecting some sort outburst from Krista rather than the deadpanned response. He had planned to joke around a bit more but coughed and continued, "Right, sorry about that, left me just…" Darius focused on Krista while holding the staff in front of him, "Check health."
"Good, now remember to circulate your wattiez all around her body," commented Amelia.
The outer edge of his eyes glowed with an orange energy as he did what he was told, easing her pain, "That's about right, minor scratches everywhere and some fatigue. Nothing to really worry about, but you have a small fracture in your right arm, let me fix that." He twirled the staff around, closed his eyes, and spoke in a strange language.
Krista folded her arms, "Darius… is that really necessary?"
He suddenly stopped and grabbed onto Krista's arm. "No. Heal!"
A rush of energy filled Krista's body, and she felt her wounds start to close. Krista had winced and shut her eyes in case something went wrong, but she felt good, "Much better." However, even when her wounds were healed, energy continues to surge through her, "Darius, you can stop now."
When Krista opened her eyes, she saw the whites of Darius's eyes had gone black, "Anomalous! What's going on? He has the 7th type too?"
"Darius, Darius are you okay!" Amelia cried. She saw what was going on but was completely unsure of what to do. Darius was unresponsive and was still pumping energy into Krista. At this rate, she might get wilt.
"Darius, let go!" Krista demanded. "Why is he so tough all of a sudden?"
No matter how hard Krista pulled, Darius's grip would not loosen. Her head started pounding, and she felt like she was going to faint. As Krista began to lose consciousness, a fire burned within her. Krista yell loudly, making Amelia stumble away, and pulled back once more fiercely. Krista fell to her knees, but she was just fine. Unfortunately, Darius had completely lost consciousness. In between them was a strange black blade.