Kim felt relieved that the creature had been dealt with. While she mourned, a little, the loss of Owen, she considered it a small price to pay to have finally gotten the creature dealt with. She suspected Jonas would be of the same opinion, even though she had a feeling Elwin and Bart wouldn't.
Kim could hear Elin and Heather coming over, even though she doubted that there was anything they could actually do. She wished she could see how bad it was herself, but without any real source of light, all she could do was see his motionless silhouette. It could be that he'd fallen unconscious, but she was pretty sure that he'd died. Though, she had to admit, the darkness probably protected Elin and Heather from seeing just how gruesome it was.
Elwin pulled the creature from out of Owen's chest, dragged it over to a patch of moonlight that gave enough light to see it, and Kim followed, vaguely aware of Bart, Patrick, and Patricia following her. She was pretty sure that Jonas had already gotten a good look at it and she wasn't sure where Elmo was, which might be for the best right at that moment. She didn't notice him helping in the fight and she wasn't in the mood to accept any reason or excuses he might have. Even if they were justified.
Kim saw the creature, and felt surprised at how long it was. Especially with how thick it was. She estimated that it was at least twenty feet long and about two feet wide. It's entire head seemed to consist of a mouth filled with rings of teeth. Teeth that apparently weren't very good at cutting through bone as it was soil, given how much of its body had clumps of soil attached to it.
"It looks like a giant earth worm," Elwin remarked, stating the obvious in a way that made it sound like it was a complete revelation to him. As far as Kim was concerned, at least.
Though, no one mentioned how that fact had been stated already. Kim wasn't sure if it was because they were just too tired or were like her and didn't care enough to say anything about it.
"Probably is," Patricia remarked. "I doubt it was meant to stop us from reaching the dungeon, and it probably was meant to attack us during the day rather than at night, but they'd rather us fight it instead of being able to pass it by without any trouble from that thing."
"Makes sense," Bart commented, nodding. As if he was a judge or something of this fight. Or debate about the fight.
Kim yawned, a feeling that they needed to take a risk and rest the rest of the night and continue on in the morning, no matter what risk to Stanley and his group and theirs running into each other before they could present the book to wherever it was that they were supposed to take it.
"Should we continue on and mourn Owen later," Patrick asked, pulling everyone's attention away from the creature's corpse. "I mean, we still need to get to the dungeon before dawn, right?"
"You know, you probably don't pick up on a lot of social cues, do you?" Kim asked dryly, pretty sure that Patrick either doesn't know how to read a room or is just really bad at it. If he wasn't oblivious to it in the first place, Kim added to herself.
The reaction Kim got didn't really surprise her, nor did she really care. She wasn't looking at helping correct Patrick's behavior. If she was, she'd have been working on that when they combined their groups, at the latest. Patrick's reaction was merely to shrug, like he didn't really care. Which Kim didn't doubt.
"We can discuss that later," Patricia told Patrick, looking like she didn't want to deal with that same issue right then. "We still have to figure out if we're likely to encounter more of these creatures or if it's the only one."
"It might also be good to wait until morning, regardless of the time crunch we're under," Sonya remarked. "It was hard enough seeing it without any real light and as I'm sure you can see, we didn't exactly do very well without being able to see it. It might be a risk in regards to Stanley and his group, but at least we'll be able to spot these creatures more easily."
"Not to mention how Elwin had said that it would change how he swung by knowing where it attacked from," Heather chimed in from over by where Owen was.
"You just keep focusing on healing Owen," Sonya chided Heather. "If you can't do anything, then just let us know that and we can move on from there."
"Uh, that's the thing," Heather replied, a little cautiously. "He's fully healed now. He's just sleeping at the moment."
"Wait, what?!" Elwin yelped, his surprise mirroring Kim's.
"Uh, yeah," Heather answered uncertainly. "Elin and I were able to… uh… revive him."
Kim felt her eyes narrow at Heather's tentative response. She felt like there was something that at least one of them wasn't telling the rest of them. If it was some piece of an ability or something, then she could appreciate not sharing it, since it would be a risk to share critical abilities, even among teammates, since a careless tongue would be all that would be needed for those that they really didn't want to know about that kind of ability to learn about it. Even as Kim wasn't sure if her guess was accurate or not.
+++
Elin was the second to reach Owen's body as the others left to discuss whatever it was that they had in mind. Elin wasn't really concerned about whatever it was that they had to talk about. Instead, she was more interested in figuring out if it was still possible to help Owen out.
"He's dead," Heather declared, almost as soon as Elin arrived. "We can't do anything to help him now."
Elin took a deep breath, not sure if she should tell Heather this, but she felt like she didn't have much other choice right now if she didn't confess this to her. Even though she really wanted to save this ability in case she needed it to save Kim later on. After all, she couldn't guarantee that she'd have time to recover her MP enough, nor could she remember how many MP potions they had, if any, left over. Besides, she knew that she wouldn't be able to guarantee that she'd have access to them when she might actually need them.
Just like the time when the others had accidentally left her behind, or when they'd been separated due to circumstances beyond their control at the party, they could end up split up from the others. Then there was the problem that Elin couldn't remember who was carrying the MP potions, if there were any left. She had a feeling it was Jonas, but she couldn't be sure, and she didn't really want to ask anyway. As it would open the door to questions she really didn't care to answer herself right then.
Yet, if she didn't bring Owen back, then there was the possibility that the lack of his presence could make it so Kim did end up getting killed where Elin wouldn't be around to do anything. Or at least anything in time to bring her back.
However, rather than explaining this to Heather, she decided to just act now and explain \later. After all, she had a feeling the time to keep this spell secret was over. That the others might be willing to help let her recover her MP enough to use the spell again before they continued on.
It was unlikely, but Elin could at least hope for that.
"Restore Life," Elin said, feeling the sharp drain on her MP as she did so.
Heather looked sharply at Elin when she spoke, an unspoken question on her face. Elin was ready to answer any questions Heather had, but then her attention was drawn to Owen taking a ragged breath, showing signs of life that had been absent a moment before. Heather flashed Elin a look that said she'd better be ready to explain what had just happened later before using her own skills to heal Owen's injuries. Injuries that weren't as severe as they had been before Elin cast her spell.
Elin pulled away, needing to take a breath, unsure if she'd care to get used to the drain of so much MP. While she knew she could still function in spite of that drain, she also knew that she probably would be in danger if she'd used it while in a combat setting, as even her arms and legs felt sluggish in response.
After a minute, Owen's breathing had evened out and he appeared to be asleep, which Elin could only look enviously at. Not only would sleeping delay the questions that she knew Heather was about to pose towards her, but she also would like to sleep herself right then. The only thing that was currently keeping her awake was the determination to keep moving and not disappoint Kim. Not to mention the activity of the night-time march had helped keep her awake.
"Okay, how the hell did you bring someone back to life?" Heather demanded quietly. "You've been keeping secrets of your spells, haven't you?"
Elin nodded, not caring to deny it. "I just didn't want anyone we didn't want to know that I could do that," Elin replied uneasily. She never thought of it as keeping a secret, but she also couldn't deny that it was exactly that. Although, as a sudden thought occurred to her, she looked at Heather, realizing that Heather had done the same thing. "But you did that too, didn't you? Otherwise, why did you sleep for so long after only having Harold's weight land on top of you? We couldn't think of what might have caused that."
Heather sighed, looking a little annoyed at Elin's perceptiveness. "Fine, yes, I did keep a skill a secret from everyone. It's just that it's one that's hard to explain. I mean, I'm not even sure I understand it myself."
"Well, let's go let the others know that Owen's fine and tell them about the skills we used that they didn't know about, okay?" Elin suggested. "I think it might be time for them to know exactly what we could do that we didn't let them know about."
Heather nodded, but then stopped for a minute. "Wait, when I was thrown off of Sonya's back when she crash landed, did something happen to me that had you use that secret spell of yours?" Heather asked, her voice laced with suspicion. "I always felt like there was something off about that time. I just couldn't place it."
Elin shook her head, pretending not to know anything about that. She didn't want to find out if Heather would be thankful for her saving her like that or upset that Elin hadn't trusted her with that knowledge at the time. She hoped it wouldn't be something that Heather would pursue. Some things she preferred to just let be, and that was one of them.