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Proper healing? We were one entire day of walk away from the nearest settlement, and they didn't even had shamans with them, I doubted that Red Ochre would be able to treat Spruce's wound. Maybe someone in the Bear Mountain would, but again, we were so far away from it…
Think, think, Coyote, think!
Then, just as Ike supposed, a memory fragment came to me, from when I found myself in a weird fortress not so unlike the one I found myself in then. A white box, with a red cross painted on it. A universal first aid kit. Every metal fortress had one of those, nay, hundreds of those! I just needed to walk a little, and found one of them, and bring it back to Ike, he'd surely know how to use it and help Spruce.
"You were right, I remembered something" I gripped onto Ike's shoulders. "There's something here that can help him."
"Then, go after it! There's no time to waste explaining me anything, just go! We will wait for you here. I'll control the bleeding until you're back."
I nodded. And dashed away, diving further into the dark corridor.
Hopping all the while that I wouldn't come across another one of those metal man, I ran around the metal fortress, searching for the white box. I came across rooms with bunk beds, rooms with long metal tables, and found rooms with altars and temples, but no white box. It wasn't until I climbed a set of stairs and got to one especially big room, surrounded by stone not unlike that one from the outside, and with many tables and weird seats scattered around, I found what I was searching.
"There it is!", I ran towards the item I was looking for imbedded in the metal wall. "How do I…?!", I beat and bashed the box, until it split in half and displayed a transparent tube filled with a gray liquid. I quickly took it in hands, and turned around to run back to my friends in need. Just to see my path impeded, just as I feared, by another metal man. "No… this one is bigger."
The being's eyes glowed red, and it stepped forward, towering over me. But I didn't have any time to waste with those things, and I knew how to defeat them already: storing the tube with a needle in one of my pockets, I extended both hands towards my enemy and shot two beams of lightning.
The opponent was quicker, however, and conjured one of those spherical shields before my lightning could hit it. And then, it run towards me, opening well its huge clawed hands.
"Shit!", I jumped away, using my shield and explosion to throw myself faster than the surprisingly quick metal man.
As the place I stood just one moment before was torn to pieces by ravenous metal claws, slashing against the stone walls and revealing that there was, actually a transparent shield in between the interior of the fortress and the rocks outside, I tried to dash for the exit door. Perhaps I'd be able to lose the metal man in the labyrinthian corridors of the fortress, after all.
But before I could even reach the threshold, the big table that was fused with the ground was kicked by the enemy, torn off its base in an explosion of sparks, and crashed against the exit, blocking it.
My winning strategy didn't work, and I was forced to fight against the enemy.
I threw away my cape of black feathers in which was stored the item to heal Spruce, so not to end up destroying it during the fight, and readied myself. My opponent, on the other side of the room slowly brought down the foot with which he kicked the table away, and stared at me with cold, focused shining red eyes. Then he dashed towards me again.
"Stone!", I screamed, evading the attack and creating a hard stalagmite on the way of my enemy, only for the thing to be destroyed by its shield and later by his claws. "Fire!", I tried to shoot a constant stream of fire on the enemy's shield, but the heat was no bother to the thing, and it stood intact. "Water!", perhaps the sudden change in temperature could break it? It couldn't. "Fuck, explosions!", I tried a risky movement, got close to the tall metal man and threw an explosive punch against the protective layer, but I only managed to get myself hurt when my opponent slashed me in the belly, and hurled me away, my entrails and blood spilling all over the room, like a red line ball unrolling in the air. "Buah…!", I hit against the wall.
I was already losing my consciousness when my instincts took over me once again. I saw an image of an idyllic forest, full of beautiful and ethereal beings, a place in which the trees still spoke, and the air was much thicker with magic. But there was no time to focus on my past, for I had a tall metal man to destroy.
"Raaagh!", covered in mysterious back smoke from my instant healing after breaking a seal, I decided to use the same strategy as my enemy and created a shield in front of me, and dashed against him.
The clash sounded like ice against ice, and felt as if I was clenching their teeth too hard, and as both shields cracked, the metal man readied its claws, and I had an idea.
"Come after me, you rust-head!", I taunted, running away from the monster with my shields and explosions. I then fixed my feet well onto the ground, and created another barrier and, waited for the charge, which inevitably came. That time, however, I unmade my shield, and dodged at the last second, letting the enemy clash his own shield, with the shield on the wall, breaking both… and then the stone wall outside.
The creature suddenly fell forward, lost its foot and plummeted from the very top of the mountain all the way the desert down below, on which it was squashed under its own weight, and then exploded in a huge ball of multi-colored fire.
Having confirmed that the metal-man was destroyed, I got back to the exit, and blew the table away.
I made my way back through the corridors of the metal fortress, and reached Spruce as fast as I could, when I immediately gave the tube with the grey stuff to Ike.
"A needle?", he was surprised for a moment, but shock his head, and injected Spruce right after.
We both awaited there, anxiously, and right before our eyes, the wound on Spruce's side started to miraculously close! Weirdly, his piercings on his scalp all fell down too, but that didn't matter, for the little person's breathing audibly again, and he opened his eyes.
"…I am… weak", Spruce said. And then, tears started to roll down his cheek.